77 L.A. city employees lose pay after refusing to sign notice for vaccine mandate

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, shown in 2020, urged Angelenos to get booster shots, immunize children who are newly eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine, and to be tested if they are experiencing symptoms. Dozens of Los Angeles city employees are now going unpaid after refusing to sign notices that directed them to get COVID-19 vaccines by a December deadline — and the numbers could grow in coming weeks, Mayor Eric Garcetti said Wednesday. Still, he emphasized that the modestness of the illness he experienced — a mild fever and some cold symptoms — was “probably thanks to the vaccine that I got earlier this year.” The L.A. city workers who refused to sign notices about vaccination requirements are the first to face major consequences for flouting a Los Angeles ordinance passed in August that requires city employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 unless they are approved for a medical or religious exemption. The group Firefighters 4 Freedom, which is opposing the vaccination requirements, recently posted an image to its Instagram account of an LAFD employee holding up a city notice to Battalion Chief Robert Kilpatrick informing him that he was being taken off duty, describing him as “the first firefighter the city of Los Angeles has placed off leave no pay.” The mayor said that covering for missing employees “may cost us some money up front, but it’s cost us a lot of money to lose people to COVID when they’re out…. Garcetti said Wednesday that the city was requiring unvaccinated employees to be tested through one contractor so “that we could trust the test.” The selection process was handled by the Personnel Department, he said, and “no elected officials were engaged in that process at all.” The union that represents Los Angeles city firefighters is also suing the city over its rollout of COVID-19 vaccine requirements, alleging it deprived firefighters of their right to bargain by not giving the union a chance to ask questions about its “last, best and final” proposal for implementing the rules.