Unions furious with Adams' vax exemptions for sports stars

From: POLITICO New York Playbook PM - Thursday Mar 24,2022 08:25 pm

Mar 24, 2022

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New York City Mayor Eric Adams said today hedecided to waive the Covid-19 vaccine requirement for local athletes and performers because it put them at a hometown disadvantage and hurt the economy, while the heads of public sector unions called the move unfair because their members must still abide by the mandate.

"This is about putting New York City-based performers on a level playing field," Adams said at a Citi Field press conference flanked by the presidents of the Mets and Yankees. He said the rule instituted by former Mayor Bill de Blasio that exempted out-of-town athletes from the vaccine mandates gave hometown players an "unfair disadvantage."

He signed an executive order adding local athletes and performers to the exemption that already existed for their out-of-town counterparts. He pegged the timing of the expansion to the city's low Covid case rate and the impending start of the Major League Baseball season.

Adams said the additional exemption would boost the city's multi-billion dollar tourism industry that's been struggling to recover since the coronavirus pandemic first shut down New York more than two years ago.

“We’re doing it because the city has to function. We’re leading the entire country for the most part in unemployment. We’re seeing unbelievable vacancies in our business district," Adams said.

Labor leaders were furious by what they viewed as a special carveout for sports stars. The rule had benched Brooklyn Nets’ point guard Kyrie Irving during home games.

"I wish the same consideration was given to all city employees, the true heroes that kept the city safe and running during the height of the pandemic," said Patrick Ferraiuolo, president of the Correction Captains' Association whose members work in local jails.

During his last month in office, de Blasio expanded Covid-19 requirements to include a vaccine mandate for all private employees. Public sector workers already were required to get the shot. In February, Adams axed more than 1,400 municipal employees who wouldn't get vaccinated, including members of the NYPD, FDNY and Department of Education.

Paul DiGiacomo, head of the Detectives' Endowment Association, criticized the decision for public safety reasons, which the mayor has called his number one priority.

"It doesn't make common sense. And we're losing, in particular, the rank of the detectives, a tremendous amount of talent it takes many years to obtain in special units such as crime scene, emergency service, homicide, precinct detective squads, and counterterrorism units. And it's counterproductive to the safety of the people of the city," DiGiacomo said.

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IT’S THURSDAY: Welcome to New York Playbook PM. We’ll get you caught up on today’s action in the state Capitol and in New York City Hall as the budget countdown continues.

Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that New York State landmarks will be lit blue and yellow tonight in solidarity with the Ukrainian people.

From the Capitol

HOUSE MEMBERS LOBBY HOCHUL ON EVICTION MEASURE: Democratic House members from New York wrote to Gov. Kathy Hochul and legislative leaders today to support the “Prohibition of Eviction without Good Cause” bill, which the state Legislature is considering.

After New York’s eviction moratorium ended in January, lawmakers are seeking to provide more protections to help renters avoid losing their homes. The measure would require landlords to have a “good cause” to terminate a tenancy and allows a tenant to challenge “unreasonable” rent increases. “We believe this measure, which requires landlords to have a legitimate reason to pursue eviction, is helpful toward ensuring that our state’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic is to include all New Yorkers,” the House members wrote.

AD BUY: Make the Road New York, an immigration advocacy group, will launch a $75,000 ad buy on Friday calling on Hochul to back additional support for excluded workers in the state budget — aid for those who do not traditionally fall under the state’s unemployment system.

The 30-second ad features two excluded workers , one of whom was able to get funding last year and one of whom saw many members of her community get rejected because the fund ran out of money.

Money for excluded workers expired last year and advocates are trying to get additional aid included in the state budget next week.

ON THE WATERFRONT: The Supreme Court granted New York’s motion for a preliminary injunction preventing New Jersey from withdrawing from the Waterfront Commission, Hochul said.

“Coming less than 24 hours after New York filed our reply, this swift decision is a victory for the safety of New Yorkers and for the health of our economy,” Hochul said in a statement today. “In light of current geopolitical uncertainty, the work of the Waterfront Commission in combating crime at the port and protecting vital industries is more important than ever before. I thank Attorney General James, Solicitor General Underwood, and the entire team for their work on this case on behalf of New York State. We will continue to fight for New Yorkers to crack down on corruption and crime and protect the safe transport of goods." — Anna Gronewold

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FROM CITY HALL

REDISTRICTING BEGINS: The City Council was set to approve seven appointees to the local redistricting body submitted by Adams today. The roster includes Joshua Schneps, a mayoral ally who published a promotional Adams newspaper subsidized with taxpayer dollars , along with former schools chancellor and current Queens Library head Dennis Walcott. They will join eight members appointed by the Council at the body’s first meeting scheduled for Tuesday, when they will begin analyzing population changes over the last decade ahead of redrawing Council district lines. Citizens Union recently released a report showing just how dramatic those changes could be. — Joe Anuta

ON THE BEATS

LEAVING NEW YORK: New York’s ongoing population losses have typically been the result of residents leaving upstate. But over the past year, the culprit has been out-migration from New York City.

The Empire Center’s found E.J. McMahon wrote today that the outflow of residents from the Big Apple accounted for nearly all of New York’s record single-year population loss following the Covid-19 outbreak, according to estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. During the 12-month period ending July 1, the city’s population dropped by 305,665 people, or 3.5 percent, erasing nearly half of its 629,057 increase in population over the previous decade, the Empire Center found.

That’s an extraordinary decline compared to the rest of the state, the result, perhaps, of the city’s struggles with Covid-19 two years ago.

The Census Bureau estimated the total population of New York’s other 57 counties decreased by 13,555 during the same time period.

HEALTH CARE: SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University will run out of money by June if Hochul doesn’t provide the medical center with $159 million, hospital executives and a local politician say. Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo designated the facility in central Brooklyn as one of three Covid-only facilities in 2020, though every hospital in New York had to drop elective surgeries to care for the influx of patients with the novel coronavirus.

State Sen. Zellnor Myrie, a Democrat who represents Prospect Lefferts Gardens where SUNY Downstate is located, told POLITICO that the hospital is going to be in “dire straits” without that funding, which could affect services and the educational programming for medical and nursing students. He attributed the hole to lost revenue stemming from the designation.

“This is the state’s responsibility,” Myrie said. “I hope the governor takes this incredibly seriously. Our community is traumatized. We’ve had hospital closings in the past.” — Amanda Eisenberg

NURSING HOMES HIT BACK: LeadingAge New York, which represents hundreds of nursing homes, senior housing facilities, adult care facilities and assisted living providers, is calling for the Hochul administration to continue its delay in enforcing nursing home staffing requirements amid “crisis level workforce shortages.”

In a recent letter to Attorney General Tish James, LeadAge President and CEO James W. Clyne Jr. questioned her Monday call for immediate enforcement of the state’s minimum nursing hours requirements “given the current staffing emergency and inadequate nursing home reimbursement.” He argued that while “there is nothing our not-for-profit and public nursing home members would like more than to have ample staff and be able to pay them well,” very few facilities would be able to meet “the rigorous and unrealistic, state-mandated staffing standards.”

“We agree that a stable, well-paid workforce is critical to the delivery of high-quality long-term care. However, this cannot be achieved overnight nor without appropriate levels of Medicaid reimbursement,” he wrote.

Clyne urged Hochul and the Legislature to include “sufficient funding in the state budget to support the long-term care workforce in all settings, including nursing homes.” And he called for Hochul to continue the delay in staffing requirement enforcement, which is set to end next week, so facilities can hire more employees to comply with it. — Shannon Young

AROUND NEW YORK

— Starting this summer, Uber will begin listing New York City’s yellow taxis on its app, The Wall Street Journal reported.

— Two Buffalo nursing homes were fined $56,000 by the state Health Department.

— The state Department of Labor says that New York’s unemployment rate dropped from 5.3 percent to 4.9 percent..

— Buffalo State College had to close its campus due to a bomb threat.

— Two pigs escaped a Brooklyn warehouse that was on fire early this morning.

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