Councillor Esther Pauls (pictured) argued the “outdated policy creates unnecessary barriers to hiring the best people for the job.” Photo credit: City of Hamilton
Councillor Esther Pauls brought forward a motion at a December 7, 2022 Hamilton City Council meeting to have the municipality get rid of one of the last remaining city employee vaccination mandates: the requirement that all of the city’s new hires be “fully vaccinated.”
Pauls’ motion, seconded by Ward 5 Councillor Matt Francis, would have amended the city’s new hire vaccination policy, only requiring staff working at the two city-run long-term care homes, for Hamilton Paramedic Service, or for the Red Hill Child Care centre to be fully vaccinated as a condition of hire.
Currently, all prospective new hires, including summer students who would work outdoors, must provide proof of vaccination as a condition of employment.
However, other councillors derailed Pauls’ motion, voting to defer discussion of the issue for nearly two months to a February 1 General Issues Committee meeting. The deferral motion was brought forward by Dundas Councillor Alex Wilson and seconded by Ward 2 Councillor Cameron Kroetsch.
Pauls argued that the new hire vaccination mandate should be discussed immediately and decided upon, especially since the city is already in the process of hiring summer students for the 2023 season.
“We have been talking about [the vaccine mandates] for a long time. Why does it have to be in February? We are hiring students right now for the summer and we need to know where we stand,” said Pauls.
Councillor Tom Jackson backed Pauls.
“I have had two and a half years of lobbying, we don’t need another two and a half months,” he said.
Pauls continued that “keeping this outdated policy creates unnecessary barriers to hiring the best people for the job.” She noted that the city is already facing staffing shortages.
Before the vote on the deferral of the motion until February 2023, Councillor John-Paul Danko proposed deferring the discussion even further: until February 2024.
Danko contended that “there is no urgency” to discussing the vaccination policy for new hires.
“COVID is not over and we need time to understand the long-term ramifications of COVID,” he argued.
Danko, a staunch supporter of terminating unvaccinated city employees, has said multiple times that those who do not get vaccinated are “selfish”. He voted in favour of terminating unvaccinated employees every time the issue came up.
He was also one of the only councillors to vote against deadline extensions for unvaccinated employees, contending that the original policy should have remained in place and that unvaccinated employees should have already been terminated on June 1.
However, not a single councillor seconded Danko’s amendment to defer discussion to 2024, so it failed.
Ultimately, Council voted 9-6 to defer discussion until February 1, 2023.
They also directed Executive Director of Human Resources Laura Fontana to report on the implications of the motion, alternatives for consideration, and a review of other municipalities’ policies on February 1 and for the City Solicitor to report back to the committee on the impacts of the motion and alternatives.
It should be noted that the new hire policy is separate from the vaccination policy for current city employees. Current city employees were slated to be terminated on June 1, 2022. That was then amended to September 30, 2022.
But then Fontana revealed that the financial costs of following through with the employee termination would cost taxpayers between $2.8 million to $7.4 million due to severance packages entitled to unionized city employees who would face termination.
Council then decided not to terminate unvaccinated current employees and to even end testing requirements except for those working in the two city-run long-term care homes, paramedics, and those working at the Red Hill Centre.
If Pauls’ December motion ends up passing in February, the only remaining vaccination mandates for city staff would be that new hires for the two city-run long-term care homes, Hamilton Paramedics, and Red Hill Child Care Centre employees must be fully vaccinated and current employees must be fully vaccinated or take three tests a week.
Those supporting the motion to defer discussion to February were (9): Horwath, Cassar, Nann, A. Wilson, Kroetsch, Hwang, Clark, Tadeson, and McMeekin.
Those opposed to deferring the discussion to February were (6): Pauls, Francis, Beattie, Spadafora, Jackson, and Danko (although Danko’s opposition was because he wanted discussion deferred even longer to 2024).
In an additional development on the vaccination policy front, arbitrator Jesse Nynam ruled on November 24, 2022 that the City of Hamilton cannot terminate any current CUPE Local 5167 city employees, only place them on unpaid leave. The decision means that the city’s original termination policy would have been a breach of contract.
Based in Hamilton, he reaches hundreds of thousands of people monthly on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. He has been published in The Hamilton Spectator, Stoney Creek News, and Bay Observer. He has also been a segment host with Cable 14 Hamilton. In 2017, he received the Chancellor Full Tuition Scholarship from the University of Ottawa (BA, 2022). He has also received the Governor General’s Academic Medal. He formerly worked in a non-partisan role on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
