University of Rochester plumber prepared to lose job rather than get the COVID-19 vaccine

Rochester, New York — After President Biden’s announcement, workers are weighing all of their options of a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for employees of larger companies.

For health care workers, the mandates are even more stringent.

A plumber who has been working at the University of Rochester Medical Center for 21 years is also choosing to not get vaccinated.

“It’s a personal choice of mine,” said Robert Carr.

Starting on September 27, the University of Rochester will require all faculty and staff to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

“It doesn’t seem right to me,” he said. “It doesn’t seem right to a lot of our health care workers on campus and at the University of Rochester Medical Center.”

“Employers have almost the absolute right to impose terms and conditions of employment on employees,” said Nixon Peabody Labor & Employment Attorney Kimberly Harding. “…These can be certification requirements. These can be education requirements. Competency requirements. The vaccine requirement is really one of just a litany of requirements that we impose, so employees who elect not to be vaccinated are really refusing to comply with employer policies, and therefore subject to termination.”

“I’m a plumber,” Carr said. “I snake toilets. I clean out drain lines. I’m in the bowels of that university doing the hard work that’s necessary to keep the utilities running and I don’t have a lot of contact with people.”

“So that the state mandate really goes beyond just the clinical care or the bedside staff at hospitals and other health care facilities,” said Harding. “It’s broad enough to certainly include contract staff and other foodservice people, janitorial employees and things of that nature. I think the wisdom of what the state would tell you the reasoning behind that is, is that the delta variant we know is highly contagious, and it doesn’t just affect those who may be patients at the hospital, but we are trying to maintain the health and safety of all the workers and really just the general public.”

According to Carr, he is willing to sacrifice his job in order to avoid getting the vaccine.

“I’m willing to lose my job over the principle of my personal sovereignty,” he said.

The University of Rochester says its epidemiologists, public health experts and scientists have stressed the effectiveness and safety of COVID vaccines.

Carr does not trust that and does not have faith that the vaccine is safe, and he holds out hope that other options will become available.

“There’s a lot of us that are feeling a lot of anxiety,” said Carr.