Based on current numbers, just over 500 municipal employees, including 40 transit workers, would lose their jobs. Photo credit: Twitter/Hamilton Street Railway
On Wednesday, April 27, Hamilton City Council held a key vote on the city’s vaccination policy. The vote was on whether to continue with the plan to terminate employees who remain unvaccinated after May 31, 2022. Council voted 6-6 in favour of keeping the mandate. The motion to scrap the policy needed two-thirds support in order to be rescinded.
Those in favour of keeping the mandate were: Fred Eisenberger, Maureen Wilson, Nrinder Nann, John-Paul Danko, Judi Partridge and Russ Powers.
Those against the mandate were: Esther Pauls, Maria Pearson, Tom Jackson, Sam Merulla, Jason Farr and Lloyd Ferguson. However, four city councillors (Brad Clark, Terry Whitehead, Brenda Johnson, and Arlene VanderBeek) were absent from the vote.
The only way that a new vote could be held that includes the four absent councillors is if one of the six councillors who voted to keep the mandate in place decides to change their mind and trigger a re-vote.
ATU Local 107, the union representing Hamilton’s HSR bus drivers, believes that if those four councillors had been present for the vote then the vaccine mandate would have been revoked. Union president Eric Tuck wrote in a statement afterwards that the union was “certain they had enough support on council,” but said that they lost because of the four council members that “failed to be present.”
The vote to keep the mandate comes after a number of signs pointed to it potentially being removed. More specifically, a staff report from the municipal human resources department recommended that councillors should suspend the mandate and only consider implementing it if the COVID situation worsens.
Hamilton’s human resources department says that 64 city employees are on unpaid leave for failing to disclose their vaccination status and 441 are regularly taking rapid antigen tests. All 505 of those employees will be terminated unless they provide proof of two vaccine shots by May 31, 2022.
Approximately 94 per cent of the city’s workforce (7,149 staff) are considered fully vaccinated.
The city also reportedly received legal advice that the mandate would not hold up. Lora Fontana, head of human resources at the City of Hamilton, said that they do not think that courts and the arbitration process would support the city’s decision to keep the mandate since the city’s policy is no longer in line with the policy of the province. The province lifted mandatory masking and vaccine mandates a number of weeks ago.
“With those recent considerations from the province, it’s difficult to continue to implement our policy, particularly as it relates to the mandating of the vaccines,” Fontana said.
But Ward 8 Councillor John-Paul Danko said that he is “perfectly okay” with putting unvaccinated employees “on permanent unpaid leave indefinitely.” He said that those who do not get vaccinated are refusing due to their own “selfish entitlement.”
ATU Local 107 plans to continue to push for arbitration under Ontario’s Labour Relation Act. Approximately 40 transit workers are impacted by the policy. City staff have also said that there are close to ten unions that have filed grievances regarding the mandate.
It should be noted that the vote on April 27 was only in regards to what to do with current city employees who are unvaccinated. There is a separate policy in place mandating that all new hires by the City of Hamilton be vaccinated.
Based in Hamilton, Ontario, Kevin Geenen reaches hundreds of thousands of people monthly on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. He is a regular contributor with The Hamilton Independent and has also been published in The Hamilton Spectator, Stoney Creek News, Niagara Independent, and Bay Observer. He has also been a segment host with Cable 14 Hamilton. He is known for Hamilton crime updates and social media news graphics. 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 from Governor General David Johnston. He formerly worked in a non-partisan role on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. In March 2022, Kevin started working as an Office Administrator at RE/MAX. Kevin’s journalism work continues to be independent of his other jobs.
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.
