Eight people will be offered the jobs at the MBTA after the transit agency lifted its vaccination mandate for its workforce, according to information provided by an MBTA spokesperson.
In an email to MBTA employees on Dec. 2, CEO Steve Poftak wrote that the agency was waiving T’s vaccine policy, which required its workforce to be fully vaccinated. The MBTA policy followed an executive order issued by Governor Charlie Baker in August 2021 that implemented a COVID-19 vaccination requirement for all employees within state executive branch agencies, according to the email.
More than 90 percent of the MTBA workforce have been vaccinated since the policy was issued, Poftak wrote in the email. Poftak said that, coupled with the rise of additional vaccinations, targeted boosters, antivirals and COVID becoming a “more manageable disease for the vast majority of people who get it” as reasons to reduce the need for vaccines. .
The MBTA still urges its employees to get vaccinated and boosted.
Eight previously noncompliant employees will be offered their old jobs, “through a negotiated settlement agreement with their union,” a spokesperson confirmed in an email to NBC10 Boston.
