A paramedic with the Chicago Fire Department took to Youtube to discuss the rank-and-file membership’s views regarding mandatory vaccination as the deadline for the department employees to upload their COVID-19 vaccine status expired.
In recent days, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has threatened action against all city employees who do not upload their vaccine status. The deadline passed on Friday.
In the 17-minute-long video Brendan Hehir, a 13-year veteran of the fire department who works as a paramedic, said at least 700 members of the fire union are protesting the vaccine mandate.
“Our end goal is to get rid of this vaccine mandate, which I believe is what most people feel the end goal is,” Hehir said.
Hehir encouraged his fellow firefighters to not upload their vaccine status to the city's portal.
“For me, the portal is the mandate. That's where it starts. If the mandate is gone, then someone who wants to get the vaccine can go and get it. Someone who doesn't want the vaccine doesn't have to get it. There's no reason for the City of Chicago to know whether or not I got the vaccine,” Hehir said.
The union held two meetings that drew more than 700 employees who said they would not upload their status.
The Chicago Fire Department has 4,885 employees. Approximately 28% of them have not reported their vaccine status, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. The police department has a lower rate of compliance with only 64% reporting vaccination status to the portal.
Lightfoot attacked the Fraternal Order of Police over its stance that mirrors that of Hehir and other members of the fire department.
Chicago Public School leaders also pulled back from enforcing a vaccine mandate set for Oct. 15 as well as opting to allow employees to be tested for COVID weekly.
“What we need to do from here on out is stick together and see this thing through 'til the end until the mayor realizes that she's wrong and that this vaccine mandate goes away and they come up with a solution that they negotiate with our bargaining unit,” Hehir said.
He conceded while the city has a right to ask for vaccination status that he also has a right to decline.
In the waning hours before Friday’s deadline, Hehir said a mayoral employee was calling fire department members telling them they were required to upload vaccine status.
“The city becomes illegal when they tell the members that if you don't upload that status, we are going to send you home without pay. You have now made it a job requirement for me to tell you whether or not I'm vaccinated, and that's where the line is drawn,” he said.
Hehir accused local union leadership of kowtowing to the Lightfoot administration by not properly communicating the message to its members.
"All the misinformation that was sent out, the lack of information, you getting out of that portal and uploading your sadness after you saw 700 people standing at Union Hall and tell you that they weren't going to do it, to me is you don't deserve to be an executive board member. You are elected by us, for us. Your job on that executive board is to do what we feel is right unless you have some sort of legal information that you could tell us. But that didn't come out.” he said.
Hehir was called a “hero” for his service. In 2016 he saved the life of a 7-year-old Mia Rodgers.
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