More U.S. companies have begun demanding that employees receive COVID-19 blows, leaving the unvaccinated with a clear choice: get wrapped up or look for work elsewhere.
There are a lot of big companies, from CVS Health to United Airlines announced vaccination warrants since the Food and Drug Administration last week gave final approval to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. So what happens when a worker refuses to get vaccinated?
Under labor law, employers have the right to set their own terms and conditions of employment: if a worker does not comply, a company can give them the ax. This also applies to vaccines against COVID-19, according to the Commission for Equal Employment Opportunities.
“The EEOC has made it clear that people can be required to get the vaccine as a term and working condition. This is subject to applications for accommodation based on medical reasons or sincerely held religious beliefs,” Helen Rella, a lawyer. in the workplace in New York The law firm Wilk Auslander, based, told CBS MoneyWatch.
These exemptions may apply if an employee has a medical condition or a sincere religious belief that prevents him or her from getting vaccinated.
“Once an employee makes a request for accommodation, the employer has an obligation to hold an interactive discussion with the employee to determine whether accommodation is possible or not,” Rella explained.
In almost all other cases, an employee who rejects the vaccine may be terminated. For example, a judge in July filed a lawsuit against a group of 117 unvaccinated Houston Methodist employees on the need for a vaccine from Houston Hospital. More than 150 employees who refused to receive the COVID-19 vaccine either resigned or was fired after the lawsuit was filed.
“In the labor context, we are talking about private employers who have the absolute right to set terms and conditions of employment,” Rella said.
However, there may be other risks of firing unvaccinated workers, including internal turmoil. As a result, only 7% of companies say they lay off workers who are not vaccinated, according to a recent survey by Aon, a provider of health and financial products, to 583 companies in various industries. In fact, 38% of respondents said they were expanding work-from-home options for unvaccinated workers, while 20% said they needed periodic COVID-19 testing.
But this reluctance seems to change rapidly, spurred on by both the growing acceptance of the vaccine and the latest wave of coronavirus related to the highly contagious Delta variant.
“Employers return to the decision-making table and revisit those decisions about vaccine mandates,” said Aon’s chief medical officer, Drs. Neal Mills. “They realize we are in a public health emergency and have decided to move towards the mantle of leadership and review the decisions they need to make to properly address the public health emergency.”
In the meantime, many companies may not have to lay off workers who do not meet the requirements. In some cases, corporate vaccine mandates have pushed vaccination to the vaccine over the edge, forcing workers who want to continue working to roll up their sleeves.
According to the Axios-Ipsos coronavirus index, released on Tuesday, opposition to vaccinating against COVID-19 has waned to its lowest level. More than three-quarters of Americans have been vaccinated or say they probably will be, an increase of two percentage points from mid-July, according to the index.
Among unvaccinated individuals, about half say they are open to inoculation. Among these, half claim that a mandate or an incentive from the employer, such as a raise or a bonus, would convince them to get the shot.
From September 30, for example, vaccination against COVID-19 it will be a working condition at Bonanno Concepts, a group of restaurants based in Denver, Colorado. The restaurant group said the mandate already influenced people to be punctured.
“We have had 20% of our unvaccinated employees (almost 20%) enrolled to be vaccinated within 24 hours of deploying this policy,” said Jessica Kinney, people director of Bonanno Concepts.