Nearly 11% Of LA City Employees Plan To Seek Exemption From Vaccine Mandate
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — Nearly 11% of Los Angeles' 57,476 city employees have stated their intent to seek a religious or medical exemption from the city's mandate that employees get vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data released by the city Tuesday.
About half of the percentage comes from the Los Angeles Police Department, which has 2,651 employees planning to file for religious exemptions and 368 planning to file for medical exemptions.
According to an internal memo sent to Mayor Eric Garcetti from the city's personnel department, 2,651 Los Angeles Police Department employees intend to seek religious exemptions and 368 plan to seek medical exemptions for the mandate requiring all city employees to get vaccinated.
Meanwhile, the city's personnel department reported that the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has 11,643 employees, 30% of which are fully vaccinated. The City of Los Angeles' Parks & Recreation Department has 38% of employees vaccinated and the Los Angeles Fire Department has 3,712 employees, 34% of which are vaccinated.
The city's deadline for employees to state their vaccination status and whether they would seek exemptions was Monday.
"Every city employee is required to provide their vaccine status, and the deadline has passed. Anyone who hasn't given us that information must do it now," Mayor Eric Garcetti said Tuesday. "
This policy allows for medical and religious exemptions to protect certain workers' health and constitutional rights, but let me be absolutely clear: We will not tolerate the abuse of these exemptions by those who simply don't want to get vaccinated."
According to data released, only 48% of the city's over 57,000 employees are fully vaccinated. Nearly 23,000 employees did not respond to the city's request for vaccination status, and 5,688 reported not being vaccinated.
(© Copyright 2021 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. City News Service contributed to this report.)