Some Mass. employees who left state jobs over COVID-19 vaccine to be reinstated to their positions

About 50 Massachusetts employees who left their jobs as a result of non-compliance with the COVID-19 vaccine mandate will be reinstated to their positions, the Baker administration said Tuesday.

“The Administration has recently been able to accommodate a small number of positions who previously were not accommodated under the vaccine requirement. These employees have been offered back their positions, and the administration does not anticipate more letters going out for additional positions,” said Anisha Chakrabarti, Deputy Communications Director for Gov. Charlie Baker, in a statement. “The Administration is pleased that the vast majority of employees have complied with the vaccine requirement and has no plans to make updates to the guidance at this time.”

Gov. Charlie Baker said Tuesday that the state has had a mandatory vaccination requirement in place for a long time, with more than 95 percent of the state’s workforce participating in it.

“The number of members of our workforce who did participate grew dramatically once we put the requirement in place,” Baker said, “but there’s been a process here for dealing with those who sought exemptions and there are a small number of people who based on continued reviews of those exemption requests we believe we have solutions for. We want to talk to them.”

“Part of the exemption process depends to some extent on medical issues, on religious issues and it also depends on the work you do, and all of those things get taken into this process,” Baker said. “And there is a small number of people the Commonwealth wants to talk to because we think we may have an answer for them.”

Nearly 1,000 Mass. employees have left state jobs over COVID-19 vaccine mandate

Last December, out of 41,000 state workers, nearly 1,000 employees left their jobs as a result of non-compliance with the COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

Baker’s executive order, which applied to 41,629 Executive Department employees, took effect in October 2021.

According to initial data released in 2021 by the Baker administration, 97% of employees have complied with the mandate or received exemptions.

Religious exemptions were granted to 130 of the 2,164 employees who applied for one. Medical exemptions were approved for 126 of the 394 employees who applied.

In December, Baker said 988 employees were no longer in their jobs due to their non-compliance. That included 332 voluntary resignations and 656 who lost their jobs involuntarily.

The involuntary dismissals included 160 part-time contractors from the Municipal Police Training Committee, the administration said.

Another 128 employees are classified as “in progress” and 72 were serving a suspension as a result of non-compliance.

Other gubernatorial candidates on Tuesday commented on reports that certain workers for the Massachusetts Department of Transportation who lost their jobs due to COVID-19 vaccine mandates would now be rehired.

“I applaud today’s news that certain MassDOT workers who lost their job due to vaccine mandates will be reinstated,” said Republican gubernatorial candidate Geoff Diehl. “I’ve been calling for this to take place for more than a year, and for some workers it’s finally going to be a reality. However, this doesn’t excuse the fact that these terminations were wrong in the first place and unjustifiably displaced these workers for many months. It also overlooks the fact that there are many other people, including especially first responders, who are still out-of-work due to these mandates.”

Karissa Hand, a spokesperson for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Maura Healey, said in an email, “It’s important to remind people that vaccines are safe and, as Governor, Maura will continue to urge people to get vaccinated as a matter of public health and in order to keep our state open for business. We are learning more about the Governor’s decision, but Maura continues to support people receiving exemptions for religious or medical reasons as it appears today’s actions were designed to do.”

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