Boston drops vaccine requirement for city workers

Alongside similar steps at the state and federal level, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is formally dropping the COVID-19 vaccine requirement for city workers, ending — for now — an intense political and legal battle that dominated her early months in office.

Chief People Officer Alex Lawrence wrote in a Wednesday e-mail to city leaders that Boston would lift “all policies requiring vaccination and/or regular testing on May 11,” the same day state and federal public health emergencies are set to expire.

Since the policy was implemented well over a year ago, Lawrence wrote, “the public health landscape has changed considerably” and “we have more tools to manage this virus.”

But should there be another spike, the city reserves the right to reinstate such a policy, Lawrence wrote, citing a recent Supreme Judicial Court case that found the city had proper authority to require its workers be vaccinated against COVID-19.

“If there is a time in the future when it becomes necessary to implement additional policies to protect our workforce, we are ready to act accordingly,” Lawrence wrote.

The policy shift ends, more with a whimper than a bang, an acrimonious political and labor dispute that loomed large during Wu’s first few months as mayor. Wu’s vaccine mandate, announced in December 2021, sparked early tensions with public safety unions in particular because it tightened the city’s vaccination policy by requiring inoculation for workers without the option of regular testing instead.

A court battle with three unions put the policy on pause, and the city never enforced the mandate amid the legal battle. But it nevertheless set an early acrimonious tone with the unions representing firefighters and some police, bargaining units the city is still negotiating with over long-expired contracts.

And a small group of protesters furious over the mandate dogged Wu for months, shouting outside events across the city and even outside her Roslindale home in the early mornings.

Lawrence in her e-mail pointed to the vaccine mandate as a success, noting that the vast majority of city workers have submitted proof of their vaccination status.