Today the New Jersey Supreme Court issued a 5-2 decision denying the NJ State PBA’s request to stay the order of the Appellate Division that upheld Governor Murphy’s vaccination mandate that applies to all State and County Correctional Police Officers. Despite two justices voting in favor of granting our request for a stay, we recognize that the Court has spoken.

The State PBA along with our 11,000 members that are affected by this mandate are disappointed that we were unsuccessful in this challenge. We are currently reviewing this decision with legal counsel to ensure that our members have a firm understanding of the decision and can undertake any individual appellate rights that they may have available to them.

The New Jersey Superior Court this morning dismissed the State PBA lawsuit challenging Governor Murphy’s mandate that correctional police officers receive the Covid vaccine or face termination.

We are obviously extremely disappointed with the Court’s decision to uphold the vaccine mandate for correctional police officers.  This is not only a loss for these officers to make their own medical decisions, but it is going to have damaging public safety consequences should layoffs result from it.  Testing and masking were not an unreasonable approach to limit the spread of a virus that seems to be retreating.  In fact, in New Jersey and all around the world Covid restrictions are being lifted.  It makes no sense for New Jersey to double down on one set of employees while removing restrictions for countless others.

Firing correctional police officers for not getting the vaccine is a disaster for public safety.  Staffing in corrections is already a challenge and terminations for vaccine violations is going to lead to massive gaps in safety at our jails.  This is most certainly going to lead to more attacks on the remaining officers, who will be overworked with forced overtime.  We therefore fail to understand the value of risking public safety in exchange for a vaccine that simply is not a 100% defense against a pandemic that experts say is moving toward its conclusion.

We are grateful to Frank Crivelli, Esq. for his leadership in taking on this case and we know he is examining the decision to determine what future action is possible to address it.