Police union leader urges new level of resistance to vaccine mandate
Police union President John Catanzara on Wednesday urged Chicago officers to refuse to post their vaccine status on the city's data portal, demand union representation during "counseling sessions" and force the city to open an internal investigation before placing them on no-pay status.
Catanzara's demand for continued rank-and-file resistance comes two days after a circuit court judge handed the police union a partial victory - by issuing a temporary restraining order prohibiting the city from enforcing the Dec. 31 deadline for police officers to be vaccinated until an arbitrator rules on the issue or until there is a negotiated compromise.
The judge denied the union's request to block the city from mandating that police officers report their vaccine status on the city's data portal or be placed on no-pay status if they refuse.
"The goal now is to have over 1,000 or 2,000 officers subject themselves to disobeying a direct order. They can never process that many," he said in a video posted Wednesday on the union's Facebook page.
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