NYAPRS Note: While it’s heartening that negotiations between Governor Hochul’s team and unions are moving forward on mandatory staff vaccinations, NYS psychiatric centers continue to be left out of the mix. As a result, some of the roughly 4,000 New Yorkers who reside in those facilities, many of them with high risk conditions, could unintentionally be infected with the virus by some of the estimated 14,000 state workers who serve them. We look for the Administration to ensure they’re included here.
Negotiations Intensify As New York’s Vaccine Mandate Approaches
Thousands Of Health Care Workers At State-Run Hospitals Could Face Suspension Or Loss Of Jobs Beginning Monday
By Brendan Lyons Albany Times Union September 23, 2021
ALBANY — Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration continued tenuous negotiations with multiple labor unions Wednesday as a coronavirus vaccine mandate that’s set to go into effect next week could result in thousands of unvaccinated nurses and other front-line health care workers facing suspension or potential termination from their jobs at state-run hospitals.
Officials with the Public Employees Federation (PEF), the state’s second-largest labor union, emerged from a closed-door mediation session with Hochul’s administration Wednesday without reaching an agreement on how the mandate will be enforced. Negotiations with other unions affected by the policy are ongoing and include the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA), United University Professions (UUP), and the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association (NYSCOPBA).
Hochul’s office did not immediately respond to questions about the situation, including whether the governor might delay the mandate or if she has a plan in place if hundreds of nurses and other health care professionals are suspended from their state jobs beginning Monday. The directive also applies to private hospitals, where similar staffing difficulties are unfolding.
More than two hours after the Times Union asked the governor’s office for comment, it issued a statement saying that separate agreements with CSEA and PEF would allow nurses and other health care professionals at state-run hospitals to be eligible to work overtime at 2.5 times the normal rate of salary, up from 1.5 times. But that incentive, which would be retroactive to Sept. 16 and last through the end of the year, is not tied to the vaccine mandate.
Wayne Spence, president of PEF, said confidentiality rules prohibited him from discussing the details of his union’s mediation session Wednesday with the Governor’s Office of Employee Relations. But Spence said many of the workers who are declining to be vaccinated are individuals with underlying health concerns — including, for instance, a nurse who is pregnant and had been directed by her physician not to be vaccinated because of past fertility complications.
“There is no one-size-fits-all, and the state is doing one-size-fits-all,” Spence said, adding that some nurses have been infected more than once with COVID-19, and believe their antibody tests showing they have a high resistance to the infectious disease makes vaccination unnecessary.
UUP President Frederick E. Kowal said about one-third of the union’s members — more than 13,000 employees at three SUNY hospitals and their related medical facilities — are affected by the mandate. Of those, he said, an estimated 10 percent are not vaccinated.
“We want to work with the governor; we want to get to a place where we can maximize the number of people vaccinated, because that’s what the goal is here,” Kowal said. “We think incentives, counseling, working with those members who are not vaccinated on a one-on-one basis is a way to bring people around.”
The governor’s administration has drawn a hard line in the negotiations, according to three people familiar with the matter. They said the incentive being offered by the administration is for affected health care employees to receive a half-day of vacation if they are or get vaccinated. That offer, however, is contingent on the unions agreeing that their members would not have contractual rights to use accrued time, such as sick or vacation days, to offset any lost hours while they are suspended.
In addition, at the end of the suspension period, the workers would face termination through an arbitration process if they remain unvaccinated.
Many of the unions began talks with the governor’s office in July after former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced the vaccine mandates for health care workers at state-run hospitals. The directive does not allow someone to be tested regularly in lieu of being vaccinated, putting potentially thousands of health care workers who are reluctant to get vaccinated on a collision course with the policy.
Even before the coronavirus pandemic, hospitals and other medical providers and long-term care facilities were facing a staffing crisis — including group homes for disabled individuals, where some nurses are being forced to work 24-hour shifts.
A spokesman for NYSCOPBA could not immediately be reached for comment. A spokesman for CSEA declined to comment except to say, “This is still actively being negotiated … (and) after we reach an agreement, we will notify our impacted members.”
The state Department of Health estimated this week that about 81 percent of hospital employees have been fully vaccinated. The mandate set to take effect on Monday requires the workers to have at least one COVID-19 vaccination shot.
The Times Union reported earlier this week that staffing at state-run hospitals — as well as private hospitals — has been an ongoing challenge. For the state-run facilities, hundreds of nurses with PEF remained unvaccinated this week, including roughly 200 at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn and about 100 nurses at Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse. Statewide, nearly 20 percent of hospital employees were unvaccinated for coronavirus as of Monday, according to state health department data.
“For a community like Brooklyn, where SUNY Downstate (Medical Center) is, there will be dire consequences for that community,” Spence said. “What services are you going to deny? What units are you going to shut down because you do not have the staff?”
The staffing crisis had already prompted some hospitals to eliminate or discuss eliminating elective surgeries, or diverting patients to other facilities.
Last week, a federal judge in Utica issued an order temporarily restraining employers from enforcing the state vaccine mandate on health care workers who have sought a religious exemption.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge David N. Hurd was handed down in a case filed against Hochul, health Commissioner Howard Zucker and state Attorney General Letitia James on behalf of 17 medical professionals. It is scheduled to be argued next week.
The plaintiffs in that case include physicians and nurses “who allege that their sincere religious beliefs compel them to refuse the COVID-19 vaccines that are currently available,” according to the judge’s ruling on the restraining order.
The head of the state Health Facilities Association last week urged the health department to pause its vaccine mandates for health care workers because, it said, nursing homes and other assisted-living facilities are also facing critical staffing shortages that are expected to worsen when potentially thousands of employees will face termination if they are not vaccinated.
Jill Montag, a spokeswoman for Zucker, previously said the department is “aware of potential staffing concerns.”
“However, our overriding focus is the protection of patients and residents in our health care settings,” Montag said.