Health officials said the hope was that vaccination would become the less onerous option. In high-risk settings, such as nursing homes and acute care facilities, unvaccinated workers will be tested twice weekly. The Newsom administration said compliance at hospitals, skilled nursing centers, jails, homeless shelters and other congregate care settings would be administered through the state’s various regulatory bodies.Įmployees who refuse to get vaccinated will be required to maintain social distancing and wear personal protective gear such as face masks. She said the new rules did not go far enough, and wondered whether they would make a difference.Įnforcement of the vaccination-or-testing mandate is likely to be a significant hurdle. Quinn-Allen, who said she was vaccinated and whose wife is recovering from cancer. “All of this hissing and moaning and crying that, ‘It’s my body, my choice,’ it’s ridiculous,” said Ms. She and others blamed a growing conservative faction in the local, which represents a wide range of clerical and other state workers. “There’s not enough research on this vaccine.”ĭenise Quinn-Allen, 51, who processes unemployment claims in Anaheim and is a representative with the same union, said she was infuriated by people who claim that “their right to choice on the vaccine is more important than the health of the American people.” “Nobody should mandate somebody else to inject poison into their body,” Ms. She will not reconsider, she added, until the federal Food and Drug Administration officially approves a vaccine - three are currently authorized for emergency use - or until she sees more extensive testing. Her experience, combined with posts she had seen on social media claiming that the vaccines caused illness, persuaded her that she would not get inoculated or submit to regular testing. Throughout the pandemic, she said, she processed more certificates involving suicide than the coronavirus. Sophia Perkins, 58, an unvaccinated state employee who processes death certificates for the Department of Health Care Services in Sacramento and is a union member, said she would be “forced into retirement” rather than adhere to the new rules. Local 1000, which represents 96,000 state workers. Like the state as a whole, where about 52 percent of the population is fully vaccinated, the government and health care work forces and their unions include a striking number of vaccine resisters. Amazon: Federal labor regulators have concluded that the company’s policy of restricting the warehouse access of off-duty employees is illegal, backing a contention of the union that has represented workers at a Staten Island warehouse since winning an election there last year.īut pockets of vaccine resistance have been stubborn, even in liberal-leaning California, where the vaccination rate is relatively high and where many people take the virus so seriously that they choose on their own to wear masks indoors or outdoors.Schools Strike: Local 99 of the Service Employees International Union, which represents 30,000 education workers including bus drivers and cafeteria workers, reached a tentative deal with the Los Angeles Unified School District, after a three-day strike. Election: An insurgent candidate won the presidency of the United Auto Workers union, potentially setting the organization on a more confrontational path as it heads into contract talks this year with the three Detroit automakers. Gavin Newsom, including the California Medical Association, the California Nurses Association and Kaiser Permanente, which said it would require all of its employees nationwide to get vaccinated or tested regularly. Most of the state’s labor groups and hospital systems have been publicly supportive of the new rules announced by Gov. No state has vaccinated more people against Covid-19, but infections in California have risen sharply, largely because unvaccinated people are spreading the hypercontagious Delta variant. If they cannot, they will be required to wear face masks at all indoor work locations and to be tested at least weekly, and in some cases several times a week. Starting next month, all public- and private-sector health care workers, along with some 246,000 state government employees, will have to show proof of vaccination. Confronted with surging infections, California this week became the first state to mandate coronavirus vaccines or regular testing for state employees and health care workers.
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