After nearly a year of pandemic decimating New York City’s restaurant industry, forcing thousands of businesses to close permanently and costing tens of thousands of people their jobs, this month has brought a glimpse of optimism.
Limited indoor dining has resumed and restaurant workers, including waiters, cooks and deliverers, have joined the growing list of New York State residents qualified to receive the Covid-19 vaccine.
But at a Brooklyn restaurant, the changes triggered a confrontation between the owner and a waitress who was fired on Monday after, she said, resisted vaccination because she feared it could harm her chances of becoming pregnant.
Over the weekend, the Red Hook Tavern restaurant required its employees to be vaccinated and then dismissed the waitress, Bonnie Jacobson, when she asked for time to study the vaccine’s possible effects on fertility.
“I fully support the vaccine,” said Jacobson, 34, in an interview on Wednesday. She added: “If it weren’t for that, I would probably make it.”
The restaurant owner declined to comment on Jacobson’s case specifically, but said the company’s policies have been revised to make it clear to employees how they could seek vaccination exemptions.
Ms. Jacobson’s experience comes as the restaurant industry, whose future is critical to New York’s recovery, struggles to overcome the heavy toll of the pandemic.
The dispute highlights the challenges that employers in the United States are facing when trying to figure out how to ensure that their workers are vaccinated, including whether to make it mandatory or perhaps even offer incentives to do so.
In New York, restaurant workers are among the first non-health workers to qualify for vaccines. For restaurants, vaccinating employees is not only a way to protect their health, but is also seen as crucial to attracting suspicious customers back. Elsewhere, some restaurant employees in California may become eligible for the vaccine during the next phase later this month.
The vaccines that were developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna and are now being distributed have not been tested in pregnant women, but have not shown any harmful effects in animal studies or have produced evidence that they affect fertility.
Last month, the World Health Organization advised pregnant women to “not use” vaccines, unless they were at high risk because of underlying health conditions or potential exposure to the coronavirus. But the organization also said that “based on what we know about this type of vaccine, we have no specific reason to believe that there will be specific risks that outweigh the benefits of vaccination for pregnant women.”
Red Hook Tavern owner Billy Durney did not answer questions about Mrs. Jacobson, but he suggested that the problem could have been handled differently and that it resulted in an immediate change in restaurant staff guidelines to request an exemption .
“Since New York State allowed restaurant workers to receive the Covid-19 vaccine, we thought this was the perfect opportunity to put a plan in place to keep our staff and guests safe,” said Durney by email. .
“Nobody has faced these challenges before and we made a decision that we thought would be the best to protect everyone,” he added. “And now we realize that we need to update our policy so that it is clear to our team how the process works and what we can do to support them.”
When vaccines first became available in December, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency that enforces discrimination laws in the workplace, issued guidelines saying that companies could require workers to be vaccinated. Still, the commission said, employers had to provide “reasonable accommodation” for people with disabilities.
But in interviews, labor lawyers said the Brooklyn case was perhaps the first publicly known case of someone who lost his job because he refused to be vaccinated.
“Employers are in a difficult position because, on the one hand, they have a duty to protect their employees and customers, and the virus is a very clear and dangerous disease that often has fatal consequences,” said Lorie E. Almon, an employee and a working lawyer at Seyfarth Shaw. “On the other hand, workers understandably have concerns about new vaccinations of this type.”
Ms. Almon added, “This is a problem that will arise continuously as the vaccine becomes more widely available.”
Carolyn D. Richmond, a labor lawyer who advises the NYC Hospitality Alliance, an industry group representing the city’s restaurants and bars, said she believes it is too early for the vaccine to be launched for companies to dictate the requirements because vaccines are still are difficult to obtain.
“Pregnancy and vaccination – as soon as you hear those words in the workplace, you should stop to think if what you are doing is right or wrong,” she said. “It has to be generally available to the employee population and it is not. None of us is having an easy time getting appointments. “
Last year, Ms. Jacobson’s personal history reflected that of many New Yorkers. She entered 2020 with reasons for hope: a new job and a plan to start trying to have a child with her husband.
But with the pandemic surrounding the city, she lost her job in April at Wing, a social club and shared workspace for women with branches in New York and other cities. In August, she found a job as a waitress at the Red Hook Tavern.
Most weeks, Ms. Jacobson worked part-time, making the shifts available while the restaurant served customers outside. Some days were busier than others, including a 13-hour shift on Sunday, Valentine’s Day.
During a shift a few days earlier, she felt her phone vibrate with a message from the management of the restaurant that she only read at the end of the night. Being vaccinated would be mandatory, he said.
Mrs. Jacobson responded on Monday morning, repeating her desire to learn more about the vaccine’s possible impact on fertility. Management’s response, which she provided to a reporter, was concise: “At this point, your job will be terminated. We are sad to see you go. If you change your mind, please do not hesitate to let us know. “
On Wednesday, Mrs. Jacobson was eager to take her mind off what had happened. She spent the day having lunch outdoors with her husband and visiting the Brooklyn Museum.
“The restaurant industry demands a lot from you and doesn’t give you a lot of return,” she said. “It really brought it up for me.”