The panel reviewed an appeal arising from an arbitration award in Massachusetts Department of Transportation v. United Steelworkers, Local 5696 (2025‑0123).

Union counsel Alfred Gordon O'Connell framed the dispute around an arbitrator’s finding that MassDOT failed to meaningfully consider accommodations for a sincerely held religious objection to a COVID‑vaccine requirement. O'Connell said the arbitrator only awarded back pay and seniority benefits to compensate a grievant who has already been reinstated; he argued such monetary relief does not intrude on core non‑delegable managerial rights like staffing decisions during an emergency.

Assistant Attorney General Preston Bruno, representing the Commonwealth, countered that the Superior Court properly vacated the award because the arbitrator intruded upon MassDOT’s non‑delegable authority to make staffing and safety determinations in the Highway Operations Center during the pandemic surge. Bruno said restoring back pay and seniority retroactive to termination date could functionally interfere with managerial control and public‑safety prerogatives.

The panel explored whether the arbitrator’s factual findings and the award itself crossed the line from remedies that compensate procedural failures to orders that require the department to take actions reserved to it under enabling statutes; counsel debated the relevance of statutes, collective‑bargaining provisions (just‑cause and nondiscrimination), and pandemic‑era public‑safety precedents.

After extensive questioning on whether monetary relief can coexist with a reserved managerial domain, the panel took the case under advisement.