New York City Mayor-elect Eric Adams said he will revisit how the city addresses vaccine mandates with its municipal workers.
Adams, who easily defeated Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa in Tuesday’s election, encouraged outgoing Mayor Bill de Blasio to discuss the mandates with city unions, whose members have included loud opponents to the mandate.
"I stated I did not want to Monday-morning-quarterback the mayor. This is his time to be the man, he has to make the decisions," Adams said on MSNBC.
"But what I am encouraging him to do is to sit down with unions. We can work this out. This is a very difficult moment but there is an opportunity to sit down with the unions. I communicated with some of the union leaders [Tuesday] and they are open to sit down. This is a good opportunity to do so."
Adams told CNN that if the vaccine mandate issue has not been settled by January, "I'm going to sit down with them and we’re going to get this resolved."
"The mask mandates we should keep in place," Adams said, according to The Washington Post. "We need to revisit how we are going to address the vaccine mandates."
Around 2,300 members of the New York City Fire Department called in sick on Monday after the city’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for municipal employees took effect.
It was reported Monday that about 9,000 New York City municipal workers will not be paid for failing to get immunized with the COVID-19 vaccine.
The New York Post reported that as of 6 p.m. ET Tuesday, 92% of city government employees had received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. That included 81% of the fire department, 85% of the police department, and 84% of sanitation workers.
When the requirements affecting the police officers and firefighters were announced Oct. 20, 84% of city government employees had received at least one dose.
Adams, the current Brooklyn borough president and a former NYPD captain, campaigned in support of de Blasio's vaccine mandate, and the suspending of police officials and firefighters who did not adhere to the order to get at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine by 5 p.m. Oct. 29.
Adams did blame de Blasio for failing to "appropriately sit down with the unions, the leadership" during an interview on CNBC.
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