I-Team: Correction Officers Suspended After Vaccine Exemptions Were Rescinded
BOSTON (CBS) - A Massachusetts correction officer who didn't want to be identified got approved for a religious exemption from the COVID-19 vaccine mandate in September. He told the I-Team, he thought he was all set.
"I've been religious my entire life," he said. The officer says he and his colleagues do a job most people don't want to do. "If you are offering religious and medical exemptions then they should be honored," he said.
But the officer says weeks after the approval, the department sent a notification that the exemption was on hold. Weeks after that, he got another email that said the approval was an error and that the request was denied.
"When I went to work, I was given a 5-day suspension for not getting the COVID vaccine," he said.
The correction officers' union said more than two dozen of its members who got exemptions had them rescinded – and have been suspended.
Kevin Flanagan with the Massachusetts Correction Officers Federated Union tells the I-Team the process has been confusing and frustrating. "Our members are definitely willing to be tested, masked, PPE," Flanagan said. "What's the plan? What is going forward? that's a good question, we don't have an answer for unfortunately."
The suspended officer has a tough decision to make. "It's just not right," the officer said. "It's just tearing me up inside thinking that I have to give up a career I love doing because it is going to kill me morally."
The Department of Correction said it does not comment on personnel matters and says it will release more information on the exemptions in the coming days.