Details on Reinstatement Terms for Fired NYC Workers Emerge as Agencies Issue Waiver Forms
As expected, the identical agreement forms from FDNY and NYPD require candidates for reinstatement to give up all legal actions and claims for back pay in order to go back to work.
Reinstatement agreement forms for New York City employees who lost their jobs under the COVID-19 vaccine mandate and want to return to work began to emerge last week. While they have not been circulated widely, it appears that they are being provided to former City employees who contact their former agencies to inquire about reinstatement.
Retired NYPD Lieutenant John Macari published the three-page NYPD document on February 23, and you can find the FDNY version below. The documents are identical aside from names of relevant departments. Although I have not seen reinstatement agreements from other agencies yet, it seems reasonable to expect that they will be the same.
As expected, the agreements require candidates for reinstatement to give up all claims to back pay and end any legal actions they may be pursuing. They also require candidates to waive their right to purue any actions in the future against the City, their agency, the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS), and a list of individuals associated with them.
Interestingly, these FDNY and NYPD versions of the agreement require releasing the Department of Education from liability as well. That’s presumably because DOE employees fell under a separate mandate and their union’s arbitration deal with the City created the framework other agencies used to implement the mandate that applied to all City workers.
According to the reinstatement process FAQ published by DCAS earlier this month, City workers who were terminated for failing to provide proof of vaccination and some employees who resigned or retired around the time the mandate went into effect may be eligible for reinstatement.
The FAQ also notes that people who were terminated effective February 11, 2022, have until March 10, 2023, to request reinstatement to their former agency. That leaves about 1,400 former City employees just a couple weeks to take action if they decide to do so. Other former employees have until one year from their date of dismissal to make a written request for reinstatement.
Please note that the form below is provided for your information only. It should not be used by anyone to apply for reinstatement to any City agency, nor should its publication here be construed as legal or other advice. My goal is simply to report and provide information in the public interest.
FDNY Reinstatement Agreement
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Thank you for continuing to cover this in a professional, accurate and informative way and for the podcast series as well. All of This reporting is needed and valuable, thank you for stepping up.
Thank you so much for sharing.
If the city offered back pay they would be paying between 100 million and 200 million dollars.
This is something they obviously don't want to do.
If the lawsuits currently against them go south, they will be on the hook for lawyer's fees too.
This gets people back in at minimal cost. Not many people have the resources to wait for lawsuits to work their way through the system and the city knows that. Only a judge can review their actions at this point and decide to make those unjustly terminated whole.