Adams Offers Reinstatement for Fired City Workers, but Questions on Details Remain

Today's DCAS hearing drew dozens of former City workers to testify but didn't answer questions. The windows for submitting testimony and requesting reinstatement are still open - but closing fast.

NOTE: I will be adding updates to this article as new information about the reinstatement offer becomes available.

11/20 UPDATES:

Additional confirmation that teachers, principals, and other former noncompetitive DOE employees can pursue reinstatement without signing a waiver comes from Teachers for Choice today: Michael Kane received confirmation from UFT general counsel Beth Norton that they can do so by contacting NYCPSServicereturn2025@schools.nyc.gov by December 5, 2025.

Teachers for Choice has published responses from the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) to 14 questions about the reinstatement offer:

14 Questions and Answers on Reinstatement Process for NYC Unvaccinated Workers

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The day after Election Day, outgoing NYC mayor Eric Adams surprised New Yorkers who lost public-sector jobs under the City’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates by announcing an offer to reinstate them. The new offer, he said, would provide the “opportunity to return to their same title at the same rate of pay for which that title is currently paid, but without any credit for the time they did not serve the city, and with no right to backpay.”

The announcement was short on details, advising workers only to “contact the head of human resources at their former agency by December 5, 2025,” or in the case of Department of Education and NYCHA employees, to email their former agency at NYCPSServicereturn2025@schools.nyc.gov or HR.Laborel@nycha.nyc.gov, respectively.

This left a lot of former City workers with questions, and many hoped there would be more light shed on the details of the reinstatement process at a virtual public hearing held today by the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS). At least 244 people attended, according to the virtual meeting headcount.

Unfortunately, today’s hearing didn’t answer any questions. It was held as part of the standard public hearing process required by rule amendment proposals. In this case, the proposal is to amend the Personnel Rules and Regulations of the City of New York by adding rule 6.2.8, which is needed in order to reinstate competitive and labor class workers who were employed by NYC mayoral agencies. They would be blocked from reinstatement by the current rule.

You can watch the full hearing on YouTube thanks to independent media outlet Cafecito Break, who livestreamed it:

(Click through to watch it on Cafecito Break’s YouTube channel and show your support with a like and subscribe!)

The majority of people attending were former City workers, judging by comments in the Microsoft Teams meeting chat. Only one comment there was from someone who said he was a City employee who “strongly opposed” the rule because it would “weaken NYC’s ability to respond to future pandemics.”

Several attorneys who are representing fired workers in lawsuits were also in attendance, along with Oren Barzilay, president of the union that represents EMS workers and fire inspectors, and Andrew Ansbro, president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association of Greater New York, the union that represents FDNY firefighters.

City Council Minority Leader Joann Ariola’s chief of staff, Phyllis Inserillo, was first in line to testify on behalf of the Councilmember, asking for the rule amendment to include workers who were forced to resign or take early retirement, and for agencies to notify affected workers of the reinstatement offer.

Attorney Jo Saint-George spoke forcefully against the mandate as a civil rights violation and submitted a proposal for changes and additions to the rule amendment that would expand the group of workers covered, give them a longer period to respond to the reinstatement offer, and strengthen requirements for restoring salary, benefits, and status.

Attorney Patricia Finn inquired on behalf of her clients about backpay, lost benefit and pension credits, and restoration of tenure and status, as well as whether the City would pay any licensing fees employees like police and EMS workers might incur during the reinstatement process.

Finn also raised a question that many have asked since Adams’s announcement: Would workers be required to waive their right to proceed with lawsuits that are already in court—or file new ones in the future? Previous reinstatement offers from the Adams administration included such legal waivers.

This time, some press outlets have reported that City Hall has told them the new offer won’t affect ongoing lawsuits, but no official confirmation that this offer is waiver-free has come from the mayor or any City agencies. [Update: It has now been confirmed that no waivers will be required. See updates at the top of this article.] Mayor Adams has explicitly said that the reinstatement offer does not include backpay or any kind of compensation.

Later in the hearing, Oren Barzilay and Andrew Ansboro spoke in strong support of reinstatement, underscoring the fact that firefighters and EMS workers worked through the height of the pandemic, often with personal risks and sacrifices. Ansboro also advocated additional measures to provide backpay, pension credit, and other compensation to affected workers.

During the rest of the nearly four-hour hearing, former City workers gave testimony about how the mandate affected their lives. They also made requests for changes to the rule amendment and to the reinstatement process in general, echoing the issues raised by Inserillo, Saint-George, and Finn.

Many of the workers who testified were teachers and social workers who had been employed by the Department of Education. It wasn’t until the hearing was well under way that the DCAS hosts clarified that their reinstatement process would not be affected by the rule amendment. The rule in question applies only to competitive and labor class titles—and teachers, principals, and social workers are classified as noncompetitive. DCAS’s Michael Reyes explained that teachers could be reinstated without any rule change.

The lack of clarity on this issue was a major point of confusion throughout the meeting. The DCAS hosts explained that teachers should contact the DOE about reinstatement at the NYCPSServicereturn2025@schools.nyc.gov email address provided in the mayor’s announcement, but several teachers commented in the chat that they had already done so and received no reply.

DCAS will continue to accept testimony and comments on the rule amendment by email until November 24. You can send it to James Whitman (jwhitman@dcas.nyc.gov) or Yolanda Culler (yculler@dcas.nyc.gov).

After DCAS receives all comments and makes any resulting changes to the rule amendment, it will send the amendment to the New York State Civil Service Commission for final approval. When asked in the chat how long that approval would take, DCAS’s James Whitman replied that he didn’t know.