The United Federation of Teachers (UFT) is resisting full compliance with New York City’s vaccine mandate for public school teachers and staffers. Michael Mulgrew, president of UFT, said city hall has asserted that unvaccinated staffers will be taken off the payroll without exception, that is, including those with religious and medical exemptions. “The city, however, announced during our negotiations its intentions to refuse to honor medical and religious exemptions for Department of Education (DOE) staff from COVID-19 vaccination,” Mulgrew said in a statement directed to UFT members. The union is going to try to arbitrate the impasse together with other labor groups. “Its proposed policy states that staff with medical issues can stay on the payroll until their sick days are exhausted and then go on unpaid leave, while staff with religious objections would immediately go on unpaid leave. In both cases, those on leave would lose not only their …