Order for a hearing to address the changes to the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) that the Vaccine Mandate Created.
Lucky number 0246. Councilor Murphy offer the following order for a hearing to address the changes to the memorandum of agreement that the vaccine mandated created. Thank you, Mr. Clarke. The Chair recognizes Councilor Murphy. Councilor Murphy, you have the floor. Thank you. So I am calling on an order for a hearing to address changes to the memorandum of agreement, the way that the vaccine mandate has created. Whereas, I understand that the COVID 19 vaccine will not prevent transmission, but it has effectively shown to prevent severe disease for those who contract COVID 19. And I encourage all Boston residents and employees to be vaccinated against COVID 19. And as a former Boston public school teacher and union member for over 24 years and daughter of proud union family, I know how important strong unions are to the quality of life for all Bostonians. Testing, contact tracing and social distancing have been effective tools to contain the spread of COVID 19. Vaccination and testing is crucial to our safety. The mandate for COVID 19 vaccination is requiring a condition of work that is not in the contract. All workers, I believe, have the right to a safe workplace and also have a right to have their voices heard through collective bargaining. Any changes that are made to the MLA should have the opportunity to be collectively bargain before any changes to work conditions go into place. I am asking that the appropriate committee members. That we have representatives from the mayor's office, executive director from the Public Health Commission, and representatives from all of the municipal bargaining units and from the restaurant industry industry come to the hearing to testify. I've scheduled a hearing so all parties impacted can share their concerns to the council, and we as a council can then make decisions supporting going forward. Thank you. Thank you. Councilor Murphy, is anyone else looking to speak on this matter? Please raise your hand. Counsel Baker, would you like to speak? Yes. There are a couple of hands raised for me. I don't know if they were looking to sign on, but I'll just go first. Okay. Okay. Thank you, Miss. Thank you, Mr. President. And thank you, Counsel Murphy, for bringing this to the forefront here. The Be Together initiative. I see two major issues with the be the beach gatherer initiative. I mean, we're working off a two year old emergency declaration. That was that was an extension in April 2020. I would argue that the city of Boston and the the. The situation with coal, that has drastically changed. We've gone through numerous variants. There's been no discussion with the Public Health Board. If you look in the minutes of the Public Health Board, there was no discussion about this. These mandates, the vaccine mandate and also the passport mandate is out of the Be Together initiative. Multiple cities and towns that were at the press conference that that showed enthusiastic support of this when they went back to their cities and towns and actually brought it into a process meeting in a board of selectmen, city council or health boards. They numerous were voted down. Somerville's Somerville's Board of Health. Brian Green actually said that would not have any effect on decreasing transmission that's that's from Somerville in this. So so process transparency I have a major issue with here this seems like these these major changes are being implemented not only to our workforce but also to our small businesses that that quite frankly, I don't think the city should be in there and telling them what they should do. And the second major problem is with collective bargaining agreements that that we as Democrats and we as pro-labor and we talked about working and workforce and what people, people of jobs, part of the tenet of of being in Boston and having a workforce that is the best in the country. And that's all about. That's all about work that is best in the country for them to have agreements and to have this administration come in and basically roll that agreement up and throw it in the trash and and totally disrespect it, disregard it. I think it's a while. I don't think I know it's a major, major problem. Our whole civilization is based on the contract. Yes. I'm signing this and letting you know that I'm going to do that. Why are we allowing this administration to just take those contracts and throw them out without discussions? It's never come in front of us. Nobody has asked our opinion on where we are on this thing and and not to bring up a sore subject. But but last week that the people that came in to our chamber, they were looking for where where is the transparency? Where was the vote taken on this? Was this just unilaterally just decided? So those are some of some of my real concerns. And, Erin, thank you very much for this. And I just want to make one other point. There's a there's a large union that's noticeably absent in this discussion here. It's a teachers union. From what I understand, they have the most people out of compliance is a teachers union. So so I'm wondering what's going on with the teachers union here? Is there a side deal going on? There are there are there are commitments being made to the teachers union to kind of pit unions against each other. Again, no transparency, no conversations. But we had a previous mayor and we were in a real state of emergency. I don't know if people remember, but we met for 6 to 7 months every single day at eight or 9:00 in the morning, we had the entire mayor's team of team that that could answer our questions available to us every single day when we're in an emergency. Now, we're still calling it an emergency, and this administration is making decisions without even asking us our opinion. So it concerns me now and it really concerns me moving into the future. We can't just throw away collective bargaining like this. It's a bad, bad road to go on and sign sign my name on it. Thank you, Mr. President, for allowing me to speak here today. Thank you. Thank you, Counselor Baker. Any other counsel I like to speak on this matter? The chair recognizes Counselor Arroyo. Counsel Arroyo, you have the floor. Thank you. Mr. President, I come from a union family myself. My mother and sister are currently BTU union employees. My brother was a political record very to day. I work at the Committee for Public Counsel Services. We're actually trying to union organize for SEIU eight, eight, eight. So I'm a big believer in unions and what they deliver for us and for our our families. But I also fully understand that COVID 19 is the leading cause of death in this country right now for first responders . It is a terrible disease. And taking the vaccine one prevents and in most cases, a severe form of the illness. But on top of that, it actually because this is an airborne illness, because this is something that you can spread. The vaccine actually reduces the viral load. So folks who are vaccinated actually have less of the disease to share, which creates weaker infections. And so in for the positives. And so there's a lot of very good reasons to take the COVID vaccination. And I fully understand and support why our administration has decided to push forward with this. I will say that collective bargaining is obviously incredibly important. It's something that is the whole basis for why we have unions. But I also think that there are very specific safety issues here for both members and for the public, which these unions interface and that these kinds of decisions are not made. I think we're still in an emergency. I understand some people may say we're not, but I think we're still in the midst of a pandemic as we speak right now in which our scenes are always sort of teetering as to whether or not they're going to go into a place where all of a sudden we're over followed, overfull, overfilled, and then we're having issues with other folks. I know right now we're on a downswing, just on an upswing, but as variants continue to emerge and as we continue to see the growth of this, we're going to continue to see these surges if we don't do the things we have to do to minimize and maximize. And I would just say that what needs to happen isn't a testing or a vaccination mandate either or, but rather a testing and a vaccine policy in place together. Obviously, if you are vaccinated, you can carry the disease. You can catch you can catch COVID 19. And we should constantly be testing folks, whether they're vaccinated or not, to ensure that we're not doing the spread. And so I think we should probably go further than we have. We should have a mandate and for both testing and vaccination. But I understand that folks on this council may disagree and folks in the city may disagree, but that's simply what I believe to actually bring this. So thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilor Arroyo. Any other city councils like to speak on this matter? Please raise your hand. The chair recognizes council. Florida's council fire to go ahead, Mr. President. And just like to commend the lead sponsor for her leadership here, first as a former flight carrying Teamster. I've always been guided by the union consciousness, and I also believe that every worker is entitled to the fundamental rights of representation and collective bargaining. Secondly, and importantly, I want to stress that the vaccination against COVID 19 is critical in our cities, in our country's response to the ongoing public health crisis. It is proven to reduce severe illness and deaths caused by COVID 19. In large part, our city's workforce is vaccinated and is in compliance with the mandate. And I would say I strongly encourage residents and city employees to get vaccinated and or to consult with their doctor if they have any questions or concerns. But I also want to emphasize, and the previous speaker touched on it briefly, that the testing is also a critical part of our city's response to the ongoing health crisis. And that has to be at the forefront here because folks that have been vaccinated and boosted are still contracting COVID. Yet if we're not testing them, then we're not putting them in quarantine. We're not separating them from coworkers or their own family members. And so we'll continue to sort of chase our tail on this one. So I firmly believe that testing has to remain a critical component, along with social distancing and masking up where appropriate, etc.. So that said, I will continue to ask the administration and the municipal unions to come to the table and to bargain in good faith to reach an agreement. Now more than ever, I think we have a collective responsibility to act in the public's interest, to maintain our commitments to organized labor and to the rights of working families . We need to be as accountable. We need to be in the business of helping neighborhoods and helping businesses and helping our residents bounce back from COVID. So I'm not sure we should be in the business of sort of targeting or pitting folks against each other or going after folks and trying to take away their livelihood. I think that we need to sort of find some common ground here, indicate that obviously the vaccine has had results and has eliminated at least 20 hospitalizations. But also the testing option has to be on the table. It has to be an option for city employees. And so with that presser, please sign my name. Please include Council Fieri's name. Would anyone else like to speak on this matter? Before we go to hands, I would I would like to offer brief comments. I remember I actually called the first public meeting in the country on on COVID 19 at Josiah Quincy School two years ago , when little was known about. COVID 19 and. You know, during the last two years, it's been an extremely difficult period of time for our city. I would I would echo what counsel Larry has said. I'm also a proud member, a union member. I was a member of Needs, which is the National Association of Government Employees. As a probation officer in Suffolk Superior Court. So I, I also know the important role unions and organized labor play in our city and in our country. Building a pathway to the middle class. So the role of organized labor in Boston and across the country is critical. Just want to highlight the comments of counsel. Larry, we we do need to continue testing and we need to continue making sure that people that don't have the proper. Mask. They don't have the access to mental health counseling. They don't have access to the vaccination. We must do a better job providing those services to to our residents during this difficult period of time. It's also important for us to come together as a city, as a country. And there's so much division that we see happening in society today. But what this city does best is we work well together, especially during difficult times. So let's continue working together. Let's continue treating each other with respect. But it's important that we work together during this very critical time in our city. And please add my name as well. Mr.. Mr. Clark. Please. Anyone else like to add their name? Please raise your hand. You mentioned Council Clarity Councilor Councilor Baker. Can I say one more thing? President Clinton? Yes, go ahead, counselor. I know also there's a concern that it's been postponed a few times, but that mandate had a date where people would be terminated. And as of Monday, I know, 372 BTU members were still not vaccinated. So when that I think this hearing is going to also be important to give us information, because we are going to have city employees, neighbors, people in our districts and neighborhoods that are going to lose their jobs before having the opportunity to speak to us as a council. And like Councilor Arroyo said and clarity. And I wrote it right in my order. I. And a strong supporter of the vaccine and making sure that we were getting sites up and running in all neighborhoods across the city. The testing is key to continue. Many people I know who got the the virus got it in the last few months after being triple backs. Many were already boosted. So we know that it's not stopping the spread. So the testing is necessary, but we also need to have these unions sit down and talk about how we can collectively bargain so that everyone is safe moving forward and that our we're not people aren't losing their jobs. Thank you, Councilor Murphy. DAWKINS 024 Sex will be referred to the Committee on City Services Innovation Technology. Mr. Clarke, please read. Mr. Clarke, please read zero two. I think. Can I make a point there that I think that that should go to Erin's committee, just maybe. I mean, it's probably it's a public health discussion. Mr. President, packages make a point. It does seem that. Hold on. Hold on. Please. Hold on. Please. At least a joint. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Baker. The reason the this is going to the Committee on City Services, Innovation and Technology. It has to do with specifically with the memorandum. And it's a kind of a labor wave of workforce union related issue, contract issue with city employees. So that's where a lot of the discussion will take place at that committee. And they have jurisdiction for that issue as compared to the previous docket. Whereas specifically on public health, that would go that went into the public health committee. But this one was more of a labor and union focus. So it would go into city services, innovation, technology. I think we could do a whole a cohering there at least because my my questioning is going to be about discussions around where was the Board of Health during all this? How did we come up with these decisions to get to the point to get. So there's my questions are all before the demo you. I think it's I think it's a public health and I'll leave it at that. I think it should be at least a code committee with public health staff. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay. Thank you. I'm going to make a decision. But before I do, did someone else want to weigh in? Counselor Murphy, the EPA recognizes. Thank you. Yesterday. I know things have changed, I guess, but it was going to be in my committee. And we have set up a hearing for Tuesday inviting people to come to this hearing to discuss. So please advise on going forward if it goes into a different committee. Yes, this will be referred to the Committee on City Services, Innovation and Technology. It will go into both. And I have my hand up to council President Flynn. Yes. I'm going to I'm going to go out to dark at 0247. But go ahead, Councilman, here. Can you can you ask the question briefly? Yeah, I just I just want to acknowledge how amazing you're just facilitating today's meeting. So thank you for your patience with all of us today. And I also just kind of want to note I am the chair of Workforce Development and Labor as if there is any concern in terms to which committee this is going to be put under. I do know that I oversee both workforce development and labor issues. So if this is something that we can't find a home for, I'll be more than happy to take it under my wing and shepherd it through the process. So just let me know how I can be helpful. Thank thank you for those comments constantly. Appreciate it. Thank you. Counsel Murphy Mr. Clarke, please read docket 0247, please.