NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — Over 150 New York court employees are set to be fired by early April if they continue to refuse the COVID-19 vaccine.
The 156 workers, about half of whom work in New York City, were warned on Monday to comply with the court system's vaccine mandate by the close of business on April 4 or their employment "will be terminated," according to a letter to affected employees obtained by Law360.
"You are not in compliance with the Vaccination Mandate and therefore, have been deemed unfit for service for your failure to meet the qualification(s) necessary for employment," the letter reads.
In order to comply with the mandate, workers must upload proof of their first dose of a two-dose vaccine, one dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, or a second dose of a two-dose vaccine.
Meanwhile, four state judges who are part of the holdout group will be forced to work from home, barred from conducting arraignments, or referred to the Commission on Judicial Conduct, according to Lucian Chalfen, a spokesperson for the Office of Court Administration.
"These employees have been given adequate time to either comply or submit an accepted medical or religious exemption," Chalfen told Law360.
Critics argue that the rules prevent unvaccinated people from working while exempting others, such as lawyers and defendants, from the requirement.
Dennis Quirk, the president of the Court Officers Association, who organized a protest outside New York Chief Judge Janet DiFiore's Westchester County home in September amid a temporary suspension for posting her addresses online, slammed the deadline and DiFiore, who heads OCA, to the outlet as unions seek a court order to challenge the mandate.
"Our Public Employment Relations Board hearing begins April 5. I don't think the PERB judge is going to be very happy about this," Quirk said. "She's doing it the day before the hearing. ... She's putting a gun to everybody's heads and not letting us go through the process."
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