8 ms·

Employers have the legal right to require that their workers get the COVID-19 vaccine, with some exceptions, according to experts. The article mentions various

• MereInterest 6y ago
  What about it doesn't make sense? Companies can mandate wearing safety gear in dangerous environments (e.g. fall harnesses when working at heights) or for public safety (e.g. hairnets to prevent food contamination). Countries can mandate public health requirements (e.g. disposing of human waste through sewers). What makes vaccination any different?
  • sojournerc 6y ago
    There's not potential life-altering side effects from wearing PPE or using plumbing, and those things are outside the body not injected into it. Seems like a pretty easy distinction to me.
    • ghaff 6y ago
      There's plenty of precedent to requiring vaccinations, especially in schools. And the US government has already stated that employers requiring a vaccination in this case is generally OK.
      • Mauricebranagh 6y ago
        And for travel plenty of countries require proof of vaccination or you don't get in the country.
        • paublyrne 6y ago
          Not sure if this the case yet. Any examples? But I can see it becoming the case in the future ...
          • Mediterraneo10 6y ago
            A number of African countries require proof of yellow fever vaccination to enter. The vaccine certificate is issued by each country but conforms to a WHO standard.
        • Mauricebranagh 6y ago
          I should have said require it for other diseases not Covid
    • Mauricebranagh 6y ago
      Not wearing PPE on building site can lead to some very life altering effects. And in construction if you refuse PPE your fired
      • throwaway0a5e 6y ago
        Most employers are reasonable and don't make you do dumb things like wear full PPE for a job that really doesn't deserve it in a poorly ventilated space on the hottest day of the year and other common sense things like that. However, the kind of people who do safety for unreasonable employers (usually process driven BigCos, mines and shipyards are good examples) and the kinds of people who's only exposure to industrial environments is the mandatory safety training they took once upon a time for their internship tend to dominate internet discussions about PPE and safety. This results in some real gems of insanity.
        • DavidPeiffer 6y ago
          Having worked in an enormous heavy manufacturing facility at a company with a very good safety record, I disagree. In the case of working on the hottest days of the year in full PPE, additional mandatory breaks and hydration are required. Additional airflow should be added if in a poorly ventilated space and compatible with the work being done. PPE used should match the risks presented, which should be well documented before starting work. Shortcuts to the standard process, failure to identify when things start going wrong, etc. cause injuries and deaths. Safety culture is super hard to build, taking years of collaboration between management, workers, and unions if applicable. Every group wants nothing more than for the employees to go home the same way they went to work. Any one time you do a task with less than required PPE, probably nothing will happen. But over the course of a career, those "this one time" instances add up and eventually will cause an injury or death.
        • rwmurrayVT 6y ago
          You are always wearing full PPE in a shipyard. They provide ventilation, cool down areas, and scuttlebutts across the yard. The largest demographic experiencing heat issues in the shipyard are younger than 40.
    • BurningFrog 6y ago
      These vaccines were tested on tens of thousands of people, with no real life altering effects. Sure, there can and will always be one-in-a-million outliers. But that's true about anything, including wearing a helmet.
  • mjburgess 6y ago
    It's a violation of bodily sovereignty in ways those others arent. We regard our bodies as our own possessions, and something like a vaccination is a potentially irreversible change to our body (etc.). This is not an argument to say bodily sovereignty shouldn't be "ignored" here, only that it is a different case. EDIT: anyone want to explain the downvote?
    • Broken_Hippo 6y ago
      Explain: Average anti-vax talking points. It is generally useless to argue against them, and rarely are such points used for, say, legalisation of weed or stopping employment drug tests. Not only that, but vaccinations affect more than just your body. Such a choice can kill someone else if they get a disease a non-vaccinated person carries.
  • a_imho 6y ago
    Specifically coming from the assumption that it should be up to me what I put in my body. I understand there are exception e.g. vaccines mandated by the government (and conversely it is illegal to ingest substances), but that is very far cry from an employer requiring a vaccination. Especially for something like covid. Why not flu shots?
    • ghaff 6y ago
      >Why not flu shots? I assume they could if they felt it was important enough. And, for all I know, some hospitals may.
    • CydeWeys 6y ago
      No one is forcing you to put anything into your body. But at the same time, no one is forcing any employer to keep you employed. That seems fair. And there are employers that require flu shots, especially in the healthcare/long term care industries. Hell, many (most?) public schools and universities require certain vaccinations to be allowed to attend.
      • a_imho 6y ago
        I don't think that is how it works, we have labour laws for a reason. If vaccines can be mandated by companies where to draw the line?
        • runako 6y ago
          Employers in the US can: - require routine drug testing, even for drugs that are legal in your state - require routine credit checks - mandate attire standards - dictate grooming standards - require employees to routinely expose themselves to hazardous materials - require travel to hazardous locations - perform duties that are known to result in serious injury or loss of life - require vaccines for things like the flu - require employees to sit still in front of a computer for 8+ hours at a time, for months on end. The remedy in the US for people who do not like these factors is to not work for employers that have different tolerances for physical safety than does the employee. I don't see how conditioning employment on receiving a vaccination for Covid is materially more dangerous than requiring an employee to work on sea-based drilling rig or in a coal mine.
  • thatcat 6y ago
    None of those were designed less than one year ago or can cause any possibility of side effects. Forced medication is not the same as forced clothing choice so your argument is technically a strawman.
• Arnt 6y ago
  This is basic law: Stuff is allowed unless forbidden. Because of that, employers generally have the right to require things of employees, and the exceptions are what's specified in law. So if your employer wants to require of the people in your team that they know C++, speak Swahili or carry photo ID, that's allowed because not forbidden. But the law does have provisions for religious discrimination (in most countries, perhaps all) so requiring your team to be Pastafarians is out (if that's what the law says, the law might make an exception for the Pastafarian Church). Requiring vaccines might also be forbidden by your employment contract. But is it? I doubt it. Your contract also could say "the employer cannot permit you to take paid sick leave if you're ill on the day after a vaccine" or "the employer cannot permit you to get a vaccine on company time" but both sound far-fetched to me.
  • mc32 6y ago
    Can they make people take contraceptives, I wonder? What about “pep-pills”? Can they require that? Can they coerce anti-psychotic drugs to those who need this medication to stay balanced?
    • knz42 6y ago
      They can't require things that have a direct impact on the employee's private life, so contraceptives and anti-psychotic drugs are out. They can't require things that have unknown medical impact, so random pills out. (However, some food items can be mandatory. For example if you're a sporter, you can be required by your employer to take certain supplements.)
      • mc32 6y ago
        What about requiring exercise or fluorinated water? Those neither invade privacy and improve things for people and the company.
        • sokoloff 6y ago
          The military and sports teams certainly mandate exercise (explicitly in the military's case and at least implicitly but very likely explicitly for sports teams). Military pilots are also issued "go pills" (dextroamphetamine) for long combat and long single-pilot transit sorties.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• ghaff 6y ago
  In the US, the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) has basically said that employers can require employees to get vaccinated. (They have to accommodate when possible but obviously a grocery cashier won't be allowed to work from home so the accommodation is that they don't get paid.) I would not be surprised if this becomes a contentious topic once vaccines are widespread and workplaces, airlines, etc. require proof of vaccination.
  • mikepurvis 6y ago
    FWIW, as recently as a week ago, the Canadian PM has said that there are no plans (in Canada) for a federal vaccine passport— it may still happen on a regional or industry-specific basis, or they could change their minds, but this is where they're starting from: “I think it’s an interesting idea but I think it is also fraught with challenges — we are certainly encouraging and motivating people to get vaccinated as quickly as possible but we always know there are people who won’t get vaccinated and not necessarily through a personal or political choice,” Trudeau said during an interview at the Reuters Next Conference. “There are medical reasons, there are a broad range of reasons why someone might not get vaccinated and I’m worried about creating knock-on, undesirable effects in our community.” https://globalnews.ca/news/7576955/coronavirus-vaccine-passports-canada-trudeau/ https://globalnews.ca/news/7576955/coronavirus-vaccine-passp...
    • BurningFrog 6y ago
      "Passport" is too fancy a word, but we definitely need a way for vaccinated people to prove their status. The honor system will not work!
      • netsharc 6y ago
        It'll be interesting if private businesses start demanding vaccine proof (at the point when vaccines are widely available) or refuse service. I guess one solution would be to make such a refusal illegal..
      • mikepurvis 6y ago
• Mauricebranagh 6y ago
  Health and Safety and also the employers duty of care to the employees.
• tengbretson 6y ago
  It's especially odd considering that the vaccines don't make any claims about their effectiveness at reducing transmission of the disease.
  • TameAntelope 6y ago
    A vaccine isn't for the customer's benefit, it's for the worker's benefit (and society generally, because you can't be a profitable business if society is still shut down). If the worker takes fewer overall sick days because they've been vaccinated against the virus, the company benefits by having a more stable workforce than if employees were taking time off to naturally recover from infection. There's also a legal liability question here -- could an employee sue their employer if they contract COVID-19 at the workplace? I don't think that's been decided conclusively yet. And for what it's worth, scientists are trying to figure out what kind of vaccine we have -- we just don't know yet, because of how fast this vaccine was developed. Do we have a "reduce symptoms so people survive the disease" vaccine or do we have a "completely block infection" vaccine? The latter would indeed hamper infection. This article discusses more: https://www.fredhutch.org/en/news/center-news/2020/12/covid-19-vaccines-transmission.html https://www.fredhutch.org/en/news/center-news/2020/12/covid-...
  • BurningFrog 6y ago
    There hasn't been time to test that yet. But my amateur understanding is that while there are vaccines that don't fully eliminate transmission, they all do it to some degree, and on average the numbers are quite good. Happy to be corrected by someone with actual knowledge!
• u678u 6y ago
  Employers are currently liable if workers get covid on the job. Its one of the things Trump wanted to get out of in the last relief package. If they're liable it makes sense employers can enforce vaccine.
  • elliekelly 6y ago
    They’re only (potentially) liable if they’re reckless or negligent in implementing safeguards. An employer who makes a good-faith effort to follow best practices is exceedingly unlikely to be held liable for sick employees.
    • varispeed 6y ago
      You still don't want to be dragged through the system especially if you are working in any low margin sector.
      • elliekelly 6y ago
        Yes, low-wage workers are famously litigious and apt to bring frivolous and endless claims unless the government steps in to protect the negligent employers.
        • lotsofpulp 6y ago
          I’ve seen low margins small businesses destroyed by litigation. The exact probability of low wage workers taking legal action is irrelevant, but it’s above zero and scammy lawyers don’t mind initiating claims in hopes of settlements. I’m not commenting about whether or not business should or shouldn’t be shielded from covid liability. I just wanted to make it known that liability of legal costs, from low paid and high paid employees, and poor and rich customers, is a material risk to a business, especially ones that don’t already have lawyers on staff.