About 200 Santa Clara County employees are being disciplined for not following a stringent health order that mandates workers in high-risk settings like jails and hospitals to receive a booster shot or a first round of vaccination by Feb. 1 — or risk their jobs.
Administrators in each department will now decide what disciplinary steps to take with their employees. But it wasn’t immediately clear as of Wednesday which options — whether its reassignment, leave or termination — are being considered. But at least 80 county nurses are currently on unpaid administrative leave because of the mandate, nursing union president Allan Kamara said Wednesday.
“Further, the Department does not anticipate experiencing a critical staffing shortage due to the deadline, even when accounting for staffing fluctuations due to protected and voluntary leaves,” the statement reads. The union president who represents the firefighters, Chris Ingram, did not respond to a request for comment.
“As was expected, a lot of people went and got vaccinated,” he said. “And I expect more. I don’t think people it was serious until we got to the deadline. That’s sort of the typical approach.”