Some councilors plan to rake Wu administration over vaccination-mandate coals

The City Council agreed today to hold a hearing to press Mayor Wu and her administration over its plans to force city workers to get Covid-19 shots - and the now active directive that restaurants check patrons' vaccine status.

City Councilor Erin Murphy (at large), who sponsored the idea, and Councilor Frank Baker (Dorchester), who strongly backed it, said Wu should never have unilaterially imposed mandates - and threaten the jobs of city workers - without bargaining with them.

Murphy, until her election, a Boston teacher, said she believes vaccination is important, but that workers "have the right to have their voices heard through collective bargaining" and that she now worries about teachers in particular losing their jobs, because some 372 Boston Teachers Union members are unvaccinated.

The city vaccination mandate is currently on hold while a Massachusetts Appeals Court judge considers the question. City Hall yesterday filed its formal response to a request by three unions representing firefighters and some Boston Police officers to have the mandate stayed while their suit continues. Wu and other officials have said that the rapid rise of the omicron variant made the past agreement with unions, in which the vaccination averse could get tested weekly, was no longer valid in a public-health crisis.

Murphy, now the head of the council's public-health committee, had ordered a hearing on Tuesday on the issue - and invited both union leaders and representatives of the local restaurant industry. But Council President Ed Flynn directed the issue to the Committee on City Services and Innovation Technology, chaired by Councilor Kenzie Bok, instead.

Baker, as is his wont, started thundering about the very fabric of civilization, and questioned why the Wu administration would want to harm "a workforce that is the best in the country" in a move to take an agreement signed by acting Mayor Kim Janey and "basically roll that agreement up and throw it in trash."

He stopped just short of accusing Wu of playing unions off against each other by questioning why the Boston Teachers Union was so quiet on the issue. "What's going on with the teachers union?" he asked. Baker did not mention the Boston Police Patrolmen's Association, which also did not join firefighters and two other police unions in their suit against the mandate.

Baker said "the previous mayor," meaning Marty Walsh, had daily meetings with councilors at the start of the pandemic and wondered why Wu was not constantly seeking their advice like that, or why the Boston Public Health Commission board has been so silent on the issue. He said the mandates are "working off a two-year old emergency declaration" and that other Boston-area cities and towns have concluded making people get vaccinated doesn't work to curb the virus.

City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo (Roslindale, Mattapan, Hyde Park) said he well understands the worth of unions - his mother and sister are both BTU members, his brother was a union organizer and he tried organizing a union when he was a public defender. But he also said he supports vaccination mandates. "I'm a big believer in unions and what they deliver, but I also fully understand that Covid-19 is a leading cause of death for first responders," he said, adding that while, yes, the vaccinated can become infected, vaccines dramatically reduce the odds of death and make people far less infectious.

City Councilor Michael Flaherty, a former Teamster, came out in favor of both unions and vaccinations and said both sides should work together to ensure both vaccination and good jobs. He said, however, that along with vaccinations, the city should also insist on continued testing, because the vaccinated can get sick, even if not fatally.

After Flynn declared the hearing would not go to Murphy's public-health committee, Baker objected. Flynn stuck by his decision, because Bok's City Services committee has oversight of worker contracts.