Approximately Half Of Chicago Law Enforcement Officers Being Placed On Unpaid Administrative Leave

Approximately half of Chicago’s classification police officers may be placed on unpaid administrative leave due to a disagreement between their union and mayor Lori Lightfoot over the city’s demand that officers reveal their vaccination status to the public.

Approximately Half Of Chicago Law Enforcement Officers Being Placed On Unpaid Administrative Leave

The issue in Chicago is symbolic of the growing conflict between workers and employers throughout the nation as governments and companies attempt to implement vaccine requirements. As per the Officer Down Memorial Page, at least 228 police have died from Covid-19 in the year compared to 245 officers who died last year. Officers are the most often killed by Covid, despite the fact that they were some of the first groups to get the vaccination, which was at the end of the previous year.

At the conclusion of a violent summer in Chicago, the inflow of weapons has been dubbed “ground zero for violence.”According to media affiliate KGO, at least 120 San Francisco police officers will be removed off the streets after failing to obey the city’s vaccination requirement. According to Tracy McCray, vice president of the San Francisco Police Officers Association, eighty of the agency’s 120 officers work in the patrol section of the department. Officers in Chicago received a telegram from their union president, who presented the situation as an employment issue between the city as well as the police officers.

Despite the fact that “I’ve made my condition very clear beyond the vaccine,” John Catanzaro, head of the local Fraternal Organization of Police (FOP) lodge, believes the city does not have the authority to mandate the vaccine to anyone, let alone collect information regarding your medical history as well as change this same terms of employment on the fly, according to Catanzaro. Covid was the cause of death for the past president of the union earlier this month. From 2014 to 2017, he resigned as president of the United States.

After checking with police who haven’t cooperated over the weekend, Lightfoot said she didn’t expect any officers to be placed on unpaid leave on Saturday or Sunday. Earlier this week, the union president warned that it might occur as early as Friday. According to Lightfoot, officers should report to work until their superiors inform them that they have been put on administrative leave. Officers throughout Chicago have until midnight Thursday to inform the city of their vaccination status, or they would be placed on unpaid administrative leave, according to Catanzaro.

“By midnight on Thursday, early Friday am, members who have not completed the portal data or who are subject to testing afterward will be placed in a no-pay status, and that will be their final situation,” Catanzaro said. Catanzaro said that up to 50% of the cops might be put on unpaid administrative leave. A request for comment from Lightfoot’s office did not get a response. ‘It is not the critics who are important.’ After two years of turmoil, Chicago’s mayor has maintained his optimism.

According to Catanzaro, “If we believe the numbers to be correct and we receive a large number of with us members who are firm in their belief that this is an overreach and who refuse to provide data in the portal as well as submit to testing, then it is safe to say that our police force will be reduced to 50 percent or less for the weekend that is coming up.