ST. VINCENT-Government tells public servants fired under the COVID-19 vaccine mandate to return to work.

KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, CMC – The St. Vincent and the Grenadines government says it has approved the return of public officers who were deemed to have abandoned their posts under the Vaccine Mandate of 2021.

A statement issued by the Service Commissions Department in this regard “interested persons are asked to resume duties, in person, to their Heads of Departments or to the Office of the Chief Personnel Officer by 30th January 2026”.

Last month, newly elected Prime Minister Dr. Godwin Friday said that his Cabinet and the Public Service Union had begun discussing benefits and payments for workers, suggesting that workers would only be paid up to February 2023, when the court first ruled on the matter.

“… they’re entitled to their benefits and to be put back in the position that we’re in at the time when they were fired,” he said.

In November 2021, hundreds of public sector workers lost their jobs for failing to take the coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine, as mandated by the then-Unity Labour Party (ULP) government of Dr. Ralph Gonsalves.

The three leading labour rights organisations representing public sector workers in St. Vincent and the Grenadines sponsored a lawsuit against the government challenging the mandate.

In March 2023, the High Court ruled that the government’s actions were illegal and that the workers never ceased to hold their jobs.

The government appealed that decision, and the Court of Appeal upheld the government’s action in a 2-1 decision in February 2025.

The workers have since received permission to have the London-based Privy Council rule on the matter, and the union’s legal team said it is in the process of filing the case there.

However, long before the court’s initial ruling, the Gonsalves administration had urged the workers to return to work, saying they would not lose their pensions and other accrued benefits.

Some workers responded, but others refused to reapply for their jobs, saying that they had not abandoned their careers, as the government had claimed, and the appeal court later ruled.

In the statement, the Service Commissions Department said “Cabinet has further advised that final arrangements are being made for suitable positions for all persons who have already resumed duties within the Public Service”.