4 ms·

"Do this or you will be unemployable" doesn't sound like force to you?

nwiswell 4y ago
> doesn't sound like force to you? Not by the state, no. And withholding a job offer is certainly not force. We generally accept that there are a lot of things that will make you unemployable, like having a swastika on your forehead. It's up to the business owner / recruiter / whatever to determine what the reasonable rejection criteria are. If there's a reason someone can't get vaccinated, like an allergy, I'd consider it a moral obligation for the prospective employer to take that into account. FWIW (anecdata): my (large) company never mandated vaccines at any point, and neither did any of the companies where my friends work. And I'm in California, so I doubt there was really any place in the US where it made you truly unemployable (with the possible exception of frontline healthcare workers), even if some people were "forced" to change jobs.
- SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
  > If there's a reason someone can't get vaccinated, like an allergy, I'd consider it a moral obligation for the prospective employer to take that into account. It depends on the job. If someone can't get vaccinated; and they also want to work with other medically vulnerable people; then they're in the same position as someone who is legally blind and wants to drive a taxi-cab. i.e. While they may want to do it, and it might hurt their feelings to deny them this, it is inadvisable to everyone involved for them to make the attempt. A virus doesn't see our reasons, it just sees warm unvaccinated hosts.
  - TrevorJ 4y ago
    I do agree, it depends on the job. I can tell you that this kind of litmus test was not being applied though in many cases.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - ls15 4y ago
    But the virus sees unvaccinated and vaccinated hosts, so these scenarios are not comparable. A person with full vision can see 100% of the street, while a blind person sees 0%. We cannot even quantify the vaccine's level of protection against transmission with some certainty, but it is certainly not 100% vs 0%. To me it looks more like 51% vs. 49%.
    - nwiswell 4y ago
      > while a blind person sees 0% For most blind people this is not correct.
      - ls15 4y ago
        Fair point. Near 0%.
        nwiswell 4y ago
        The legal standard for blindness in the US is 20/200 vision, i.e. someone with "ideal" 20/20 vision sees with the same acuity from 200 feet away as a legally blind person can from 20 feet away. It's really a misconception that most blind people can't see anything, they just aren't able to operate a car safely, have trouble reading signs, etc., and crucially that this is not something that can be fixed with glasses, contacts, surgery, et cetera. (I am not allowed to drive my car without my glasses, but because the glasses work, I am not legally blind). The glasses are really quite an apt analogy to the transmission rate with a COVID vaccine. It's not that you can't transmit, but your risk of doing so is several times lower. Nor is it the case that I couldn't drive my car without my glasses, but it's a lot safer if I wear them, so it's required by law. Personally I like that requirement. Yes, it's theoretically a restriction on my rights, but I like the idea that other people on the road are also subject to that restriction; it makes me safer. Same goes for the vaccine.
        ls15 4y ago
        > It's not that you can't transmit, but your risk of doing so is several times lower. Is that really the case? Even for the early variants, the reduction of transmission risk was <= 23% https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2116597 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2116597
- TrevorJ 4y ago
  It was due to an executive order, so I don't know how much more 'by the state' you can get. Just because you didn't see it happen doesn't mean it didn't happen. I saw it happen, and I saw it happen to a lot of people at lot of different companies.
  - nwiswell 4y ago
    OK, so you're talking about 14043 specifically. No, that is not force. You don't have a right to work for the Federal Government, and the Federal Government does not have a right to require you to work for them. 14043 just says you can't work for the feds anymore if you've voluntarily chosen not to get a vaccine (exemptions available for legitimate religious and medical reasons). It doesn't say "you are unemployable now". That's silly.
    - TrevorJ 4y ago
      I don't work for the Federal government. The order(s) were very broad and reached far far down the chain so as to effect as many people as possible.
      - nwiswell 4y ago
        It applies to anyone paid with federal money. That's constructively the same as being employed by the government. Again, free association cuts both ways... If you don't have to work for the government, why should the government be obligated to employ / pay you? That is the opposite of force.
        yucky 4y ago
        Federal money is our money. They don't make money, they take ours.
        nwiswell 4y ago
        Right, yeah, so the implication of XO 14043 being that the 80% of people who are voluntarily vaccinated are not down with the government taking their money in order to pay it to people who are voluntarily unvaccinated.

> doesn't sound like force to you? Not by the state, no. And withholding a job offer is certainly not force. We generally accept that there are a lot of things that will make you unemployable, like having a swastika on your forehead. It's up to the business owner / recruiter / whatever to determine what the reasonable rejection criteria are. If there's a reason someone can't get vaccinated, like an allergy, I'd consider it a moral obligation for the prospective employer to take that into account. FWIW (anecdata): my (large) company never mandated vaccines at any point, and neither did any of the companies where my friends work. And I'm in California, so I doubt there was really any place in the US where it made you truly unemployable (with the possible exception of frontline healthcare workers), even if some people were "forced" to change jobs.

SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
> If there's a reason someone can't get vaccinated, like an allergy, I'd consider it a moral obligation for the prospective employer to take that into account. It depends on the job. If someone can't get vaccinated; and they also want to work with other medically vulnerable people; then they're in the same position as someone who is legally blind and wants to drive a taxi-cab. i.e. While they may want to do it, and it might hurt their feelings to deny them this, it is inadvisable to everyone involved for them to make the attempt. A virus doesn't see our reasons, it just sees warm unvaccinated hosts.
- TrevorJ 4y ago
  I do agree, it depends on the job. I can tell you that this kind of litmus test was not being applied though in many cases.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- ls15 4y ago
  But the virus sees unvaccinated and vaccinated hosts, so these scenarios are not comparable. A person with full vision can see 100% of the street, while a blind person sees 0%. We cannot even quantify the vaccine's level of protection against transmission with some certainty, but it is certainly not 100% vs 0%. To me it looks more like 51% vs. 49%.
  - nwiswell 4y ago
    > while a blind person sees 0% For most blind people this is not correct.
    - ls15 4y ago
      Fair point. Near 0%.
      - nwiswell 4y ago
        The legal standard for blindness in the US is 20/200 vision, i.e. someone with "ideal" 20/20 vision sees with the same acuity from 200 feet away as a legally blind person can from 20 feet away. It's really a misconception that most blind people can't see anything, they just aren't able to operate a car safely, have trouble reading signs, etc., and crucially that this is not something that can be fixed with glasses, contacts, surgery, et cetera. (I am not allowed to drive my car without my glasses, but because the glasses work, I am not legally blind). The glasses are really quite an apt analogy to the transmission rate with a COVID vaccine. It's not that you can't transmit, but your risk of doing so is several times lower. Nor is it the case that I couldn't drive my car without my glasses, but it's a lot safer if I wear them, so it's required by law. Personally I like that requirement. Yes, it's theoretically a restriction on my rights, but I like the idea that other people on the road are also subject to that restriction; it makes me safer. Same goes for the vaccine.
        ls15 4y ago
        > It's not that you can't transmit, but your risk of doing so is several times lower. Is that really the case? Even for the early variants, the reduction of transmission risk was <= 23% https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2116597 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2116597
TrevorJ 4y ago
It was due to an executive order, so I don't know how much more 'by the state' you can get. Just because you didn't see it happen doesn't mean it didn't happen. I saw it happen, and I saw it happen to a lot of people at lot of different companies.
- nwiswell 4y ago
  OK, so you're talking about 14043 specifically. No, that is not force. You don't have a right to work for the Federal Government, and the Federal Government does not have a right to require you to work for them. 14043 just says you can't work for the feds anymore if you've voluntarily chosen not to get a vaccine (exemptions available for legitimate religious and medical reasons). It doesn't say "you are unemployable now". That's silly.
  - TrevorJ 4y ago
    I don't work for the Federal government. The order(s) were very broad and reached far far down the chain so as to effect as many people as possible.
    - nwiswell 4y ago
      It applies to anyone paid with federal money. That's constructively the same as being employed by the government. Again, free association cuts both ways... If you don't have to work for the government, why should the government be obligated to employ / pay you? That is the opposite of force.
      - yucky 4y ago
        Federal money is our money. They don't make money, they take ours.
        nwiswell 4y ago
        Right, yeah, so the implication of XO 14043 being that the 80% of people who are voluntarily vaccinated are not down with the government taking their money in order to pay it to people who are voluntarily unvaccinated.