85% Of City Employees Have Reported Vaccination Status, But Chicago Police Department Still Lagging
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Three weeks into the requirement for all city of Chicago employees to report their vaccination status, ahead of the year-end deadline to get their shots, half of the city's departments are in full compliance with the reporting mandate, and only the Chicago Police Department is below 90% compliance.
All city employees were required to report their vaccination status by Oct. 15, or face the prospect of being put on no-pay status.
As of Monday, 77.89% of the officers and civilian employees at CPD have reported their vaccination status, the lowest response rate of all 35 city departments, according to the mayor's office. However, the percentage of CPD employees reporting their status has been gradually increasing over the past three weeks, rising from roughly 64% on Oct. 18 to nearly 78% as of Monday.
Since the city first began reporting compliance figures for the vaccine reporting requirement, more than 1,700 employees at CPD have entered their vaccination status into the city's online portal.
CPD also accounts for the greatest share of city employees who have reported they aren't fully vaccinated. As of Monday, 2,236 employees at CPD have said they are not fully vaccinated, or roughly 43% of the 5,260 total city workers who have reported they aren't fully vaccinated.
The Police Department's 12,835 total employees account for approximately 41% of the total city workforce.
Overall, approximately 85% of all city employees have reported their vaccination status. Of those, 83% are fully vaccinated.
City employees who have not been fully vaccinated have the option of being tested twice weekly for COVID-19 through the end of the year, but all city workers must be fully vaccinated by Dec. 31.
However, enforcement of that vaccination deadline for police officers has been put on hold by a Cook County judge.
One week ago, Cook County Judge Raymond Mitchell issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting the city from firing or otherwise disciplining police officers who aren't fully vaccinated by the deadline, but leaving intact the rest of Mayor Lori Lightfoot's vaccine policies for city workers.
Mitchell's ruling means the city can't force police officers to comply with the Dec. 31 deadline to get fully vaccinated against COVID-19 until the grievances that members of the city's police unions against the city are heard through arbitration.
"The absence of meaningful arbitration is not just an injury to members, it is also an injury to the union itself. It undermines the unions' collective bargaining power and risks diminishing the union in the eyes of its members," Mitchell wrote.
The city's various police unions had requested an injunction blocking the city's entire vaccine mandate, but instead Mitchell only stops the city from punishing officers who aren't fully vaccinated by the deadline. Police officers still must report their vaccination status, and get tested for COVID twice a week if they're not fully vaccinated.
The judge ruled that, if union members were forced to be vaccinated before they can have their grievance hurt, and the arbitration process determines the vaccine mandate is a violation of their collective bargaining rights, there's nothing that can be done to undo their vaccinations - even if they are granted back pay for time they are forced into no pay status.
However, Mitchell declined to issue a more sweeping restraining order that would have scuttled the city's requirement for officers to report their vaccination status.
Mitchell noted that if an arbitration process determines the vaccine reporting requirement is a violation of the union's collective bargaining agreement, the city can be ordered to purge the information officers provided from its database.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot has declined to predict whether the two sides could settle their differences by the vaccination deadline, but said the city would continue to urge all employees to get vaccinated.
