Five days after Democratic New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio expanded the municipal vaccine mandate to all public employees and cancelled the weekly testing option, thousands of demonstrators converged on the Brooklyn Bridge Monday to protest what they decried as “medical tyranny” and a betrayal of front-line workers.

City employees with the FDNY, the Department of Sanitation, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Environmental Protection, and other city agencies turned out in response to de Blasio’s announcement that all city workers must receive at least one shot by Friday or go on unpaid leave. An estimated 50,000 city workers remain unvaccinated with just five days remaining before the deadline.

Many participants, especially fire fighters, wore their uniforms and respective department insignias and marched together in clusters, chanting anti-mandate slogans. It was a diverse crowd, with many African-Americans and Hispanics represented among the city workers.

The procession stretched across the Brooklyn Bridge, ending in front of city hall on the Manhattan side.

The protesters carried American flags, Back the Blue flags, Gadsden flags reading “Don’t Tread on Me,” and hundreds of posters bearing politically charged phrases.

Some of the signs read: “My Body My Choice,” “Their Problem with Natural Immunity Is That It’s Free,” “Do Not Comply,” “If they are exempt from LIABILITY, we should be exempt from mandates,” “The Final Variant Is Communism,” and “Mayor de Blasio…Firing Essential Workers..to keep NYC safe??.”

In a similar vein to the September Black Lives Matter protest at Carmine’s Italian restaurant in the Upper West Side, some posters on Sunday reflected concerns that the vaccine mandate could become an instrument of discrimination. One Black woman’s sign read, “Medical segregation.”

African American protester objects to city’s treatment of front-line workers.

Other protesters invoked the idea that the city had turned its back on those workers it deemed crucial to its economic survival only a year ago.

One Black man held a sign that said “From pandemic heroes to NYC zeroes.” Other signs read “Last Year’s Heroes, “This Year’s Unemployed,” “We’ve Served since Day One. Let Us Keep Serving,” and “Will Our Vaccine Status Matter While Saving Your Life?”

Curtis Sliwa, Republican candidate for mayor of New York City and founder of the private anti-crime unit the Guardian Angels stood atop a street barricade, shaking hands and chatting with protestors as they walked by.

“I’m here to support no mandates. I’m running for mayor. We’re going to hire the workers back if you fire them and give them back pay. My adversary Eric Adams is missing in action. He’s up in the suites, I’m in the streets,” Sliwa told National Review.

Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa climbs a fence during vaccinate mandate protest.

A vaccinated Department of Transportation worker who did not want his name revealed said that he and many of his vaccinated colleagues felt pressured to capitulate to the mandate and attended the assembly in solidarity with their unvaccinated co-workers.

“I’m vaccinated. My job could be on the line for the stance I’m taking. I’m not here over a vaccine. I’m here because people should have a choice. And your livelihood should not be in jeopardy because of that. As far as my co-workers go, I stand by them,” he said. “Every union you can think of that works for the city is going to be here today.”

The transportation worker noted that the mandate seems to be backfiring in his bureau and others, hardening skepticism and distrust of the vaccine.

“What’s next? There’s going to be so much more coming down the pipeline. I think the coercion is discouraging people more because this is Big Brother trying to tell you what’s good for you. The government has no right sticking its nose in personal business, especially when it comes to something medical. What happens when you stick your nose in somebody else’s business in the street? Your nose gets broken. That’s in essence what we’re doing here, but obviously not with violence,” he said.

Demonstrators protesting NYC vaccine mandate hold banner that reads “Communism Is Here.”

Blocking off the roads and securing the protest were police officers, many of whom, the transportation worker believes, support the anti-mandate cause. “I feel bad for these guys. I feel like they’re on a double edged sword. We know a lot of these guys feel the same way we do,” he said.

An NYPD detective guarding the perimeter of the protest told National Review, “If I wasn’t on duty now, I’d be on the other side of the barricade.”

Michael Sage, a Department of Sanitation worker, was particularly frustrated that the city won’t allow exceptions for natural immunity cases and questioned why vaccinated workers aren’t subjected to testing given that they can spread the virus.

“Vaccinated people at our work locations aren’t being tested. Everyone knows that vaccinated people can contract COVID and transmit it to others. If the city’s saying they want to create a safe workplace, then they need to test everybody. Epidemiologists describe it as a ‘leaky vaccine;’ it’s not an eradication vaccine,” Sage said.

Like the sanitation worker, Sage said that many of his fully vaccinated colleagues are lobbying against the mandate on behalf of their friends.

“A lot of my co-workers who are vaccinated have signed petitions in full support and are marching today. Because if everyone has to be subjugated under a vaccine mandate, what’s next? The questions we have are being brushed aside. If we can’t question authority and the people who are in charge, what country is this?,” Sage said.

The demonstration comes one day after protesters rallied outside the Barclays Center to show support for the Brooklyn Nets’ Kyrie Irving, who has been barred from the court by the team over his refusal to get vaccinated.