Though they now publicly ask for amnesty, many policymakers who were wrong about all things Covid-19 still seem more resentful than sorry. Many are still busily punishing their citizens for the crime of turning out to be right. In Massachusetts, the state government is still denying unemployment assistance to all workers fired from any job, government or private, for refusing to get the Covid-19 vaccine and boosters. Even vaccinated workers who refused to get boosters and workers who refused the vaccine for legitimate religious or medical reasons are being denied.
My law office represents some of these Massachusetts workers. We have discovered that the decision to punish them for refusing the jab by cutting them out of the state’s social safety net was not made by the state’s legislature, governor, or high court. It was made by one Emmy Patronick, a mid-level bureaucrat serving in the state’s Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development as the director of policy and performance for the state’s Department of Unemployment Assistance (DUA). In an Oct. 14, 2021, “interoffice memorandum” to all DUA unemployment claim adjudicators, Patronick simply overruled federal and state employment laws with a new policy more to her liking:
The [unemployment] claimant will be ineligible for benefits unless the facts establish that the claimant’s refusal of vaccination was due to a substantiated medical condition that prevented vaccination or a sincerely held religious belief, and no opportunity to request or apply for reasonable accommodation was offered by the employer. If an employer’s vaccine policy permitted such requests and a claimant’s request for an exemption or accommodation was denied, Adjudicators
