The nearly 50 former Massachusetts state workers who lost their jobs last year to Gov. Charlie Baker’s COVID-19 mandate should not expect guaranteed back pay if they accept the commonwealth’s recent offers of reinstated employment.
The limited pool of former Executive Department employees — out of about 1,000 individuals who were fired or voluntarily resigned over Baker’s requirement — face an Oct. 31 deadline to decide whether they want to reclaim their old positions, according to letters obtained by MassLive this week. That includes a janitor and driver’s license examiner previously employed by MassDOT, but the Baker administration confirmed several other state agencies are seeking to recruit former workers, too.
New information obtained by MassLive indicates that unvaccinated employees will be welcomed back with few perks. But, the commonwealth is now more willing to handle certain religious and medical exemption requests that previously led to a wave of departures, Baker told reporters Tuesday.
The state government, at least for now, does not intend to offer compensation to workers spanning the time of their departures to their reinstated employment, MassLive has learned.
Several MassDOT employees from different regional offices, who could not talk on the record due to the sensitivity of the information, indicated to MassLive they understood back pay or retroactive pay is not included in offers of reinstatement. Another employee who had no definitive knowledge on the...
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