FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Ashley Ranslow
NFIB’s Assistant State Director in NY
Cell: 518-742-0425
ALBANY (Dec. 6, 2021) – The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), New York and the nation’s leading small business advocacy organization, released the following statement today from NFIB NY Assistant State Director Ashley Ranslow in response to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s new COVID-19 vaccine mandate, announced earlier on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe:”
“Mayor de Blasio’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for all private employers in New York City is completely unreasonable and irresponsible. This one-size-fits-all mandate will do more harm than good for the city’s fragile small businesses. Small, independent businesses were crippled by the COVID-19 pandemic and are now dealing with unprecedented labor shortages, inability to find qualified workers, unrelenting supply chain disruptions, and out-of-control inflation. This completely inflexible mandate will only exacerbate the dire situation small businesses find themselves in and disrupt any economic recovery efforts.
“NFIB has and continues to oppose any mandate that restrict employers’ abilities to handle their business operations, address employees’ unique situations, or dictate their hiring and firing policies. Furthermore, this rigid requirement does not contemplate remote workers, employees that are not public facing, or employees that may have religious or medical exemptions, nor does it consider test-out options. This ill-thought-out policy will lead to a surge in unemployment insurance claims at a time when the system is completely broke, and the state owes more than $9 billion in federal UI advances – digging the state deeper into a hole.
“Lastly, NFIB finds it completely reckless that Mayor de Blasio announces this mandate without any consultation with the employer or small business advocacy community, with no additional information or guidelines for small businesses, and with less than a month left in his administration. This conduct is utterly shameful and not how trustworthy and accountable government is supposed to function.”
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For more than 75 years, NFIB has been advocating on behalf of America’s small and independent business owners, both in Washington, D.C., and in all 50 state capitals. NFIB is nonprofit, nonpartisan, and member-driven. Since our founding in 1943, NFIB has been exclusively dedicated to small and independent businesses, and remains so today. For more information, please visit nfib.com.
