Safety officials brace for vax mandate clash
The law enforcement crisis over the state’s Oct. 17 vaccine mandate is escalating with the National Guard on standby to help the DOC and State Police brass playing hardball over the jabs, multiple memos obtained by the Herald state.
Included in those memos is one from the Massachusetts Correction Officers Federated Union warning of “modified lockdowns,” suspending time off, and using Guard members to staff the prison system’s headquarters if too many jail officers are fired for not getting vaxxed.
Corrections officials at the Milford HQ would then “go back behind the walls,” the memo adds.
“Unless we win a long shot case in court, the State is resigned itself to fire you,” that letter states. “We will continue to inform our members, but this is where we are now.”
State Police, in an agency bulletin, tell “sworn members of the department” to fill out a self-attestation form as they enter the “PayStation” to record their hours. The form asks if the employee received the twoshot Moderna or Pfizer mRNA vaccines or the onedose J&J jab.
But that request, the memo notes, adds they “may” also be asked to get a booster shot if the CDC advises Americans to do so in the future.
Some in the State Police and Department of Correction are objecting to Gov. Charlie Baker’s mandate forcing all Executive Branch workers to be vaccinated or face being fired. Baker instituted the vaccine mandate for all Executive Branch employees Aug. 19. The order only granted exemptions for those who have medical or religious grounds to reject the vaccine.
The exemption, the Herald has been told, is also being tightened as the MSP and DOC confront the looming deadline.
“We were all heroes in 2020 for working during the pandemic, now we could all get fired,” a DOC officer told the Herald, adding he is not going to get the vaccination. He also said the DOC is advertising on social media for retired correction officers to come back for a few shifts.
“This is tyranny,” he added.
Terry MacCormack, Baker’s press secretary, said it’s all systems go.
“The Baker-Polito Administration is encouraged by the response to date by Executive Department employees completing the vaccination verification process ahead of the October 17 deadline and will continue to work with employees to address questions and requests for exemptions,” he said in a statement sent to the Herald Thursday night.
MacCormack added: “The Administration is still in the process of gathering information from employees, but agencies are seeing significant progress toward the vaccination goal.”
Another memo says the state has received “over 33,000” self-attestation forms have been recorded since the administration started asking for them Sept. 17.
That memo adds HR has “scheduled a series of mobile vaccine clinics across the commonwealth which will offer the J&J vaccine.”
As for troopers, a source told the Herald more than 300 troopers, sergeants, lieutenants, detective lieutenants, captains and staff are pushing back at the mandate and have formed a working group. And, as the Herald first reported, they have hired a Boston law firm.
All signs point to some type of showdown next week or right up to the vax mandate deadline.