Firefighters should decide en masse not to show up for work in protest of a COVID-19 vaccine mandate, according to a politician.
“The problem is the firefighters lack solidarity,” said Mike Cargile, Republican candidate for California's 35th congressional district. “If they organized a walkout, they’d shut the city down and the city would reverse its position. But about a third of the firefighters are plaintiffs and two-thirds are willing to show up and not stand with their fellow firefighters.”
Cargile, a filmmaker, was responding to a lawsuit filed by Firefighters 4 Freedom that Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael P. Linfield dismissed last month.
“A firefighter having to quit after being trained years and years and years to save other people because they are being forced into a position of having to take something inside themselves that our government is trying to mandate flies in the face of all of our constitutional rights and liberties,” Cargile told the Southern California Record.
COVID-19 vaccination was mandated by the city last year as a condition of employment, according to the LA Times.
Linfield wrote in his 19-page decision that courts have consistently held that government has the power to require vaccinations to protect the public’s health and safety.
But Cargile said the judge is wrong.
“He just basically dismissed their lawsuit out of hand but governments have never had that authority,” he said. “So, now the firefighters can appeal but that costs money.”
Linfield further stated in his opinion that firefighters have a choice.
"The city has not passed a law that requires everyone to be vaccinated," he wrote. "The city simply passed a law saying that if a firefighter is not vaccinated — and the firefighter has not been given a religious or medical deferral from the vaccination — they cannot continue to work and be paid as a city employee. Any firefighter may choose not to get the vaccine. That is their choice. They may remain unvaccinated and seek other employment with an employer that does not require its employees to be vaccinated.”