An update of Bridgestone Americas, Inc.’s corporate travel policy of April 4, 2021, is an example of how employers can influence people to make COVID-19 vaccination necessary, even if they do not require it. The new policy applies to all employees who travel or meet with customers, but the implications are inevitable. There will be two classes of employees for the foreseeable future: those who received the vaccine and those who did not. The introduction in the policy update states that explicitly. According to internal documents provided to PJ Media by a Bridgestone employee:
Below is a summary of key policy protocol updates, which now differentiate between fully vaccinated and partially vaccinated or unvaccinated teammates. A useful Q&A is also included to help you have conversations with other teammates and clients about their vaccination status.
Many corporations have implemented travel guarantees or bans during the pandemic. Most employers prioritize the health and safety of their employees in order to continue business and employee relationships. However, if an employee’s job requires travel and he or she has an ethical or medical concern regarding the administration of the COVID-19 vaccine, the new Bridgestone policy will identify the employee as unvaccinated. This condition will be evident in the company’s internal systems and in the behaviors required based on their vaccination status.
First, the company offers a “vaccine assistance payment” of $ 100. Other companies have decided to do this, but Bridgestone will track this information in Workday, their enterprise management system. If employees do not request payment, they must report their vaccination status to the business partner for human resources, who will enter it into the system. According to the policy, employees may be required to submit the COVID-19 vaccination dossier issued by the government as proof of complete vaccination.
According to HIPAA, vaccination status is considered protected health information according to Abbye Alexander, JD, partner, Kaufman Dolowich & Voluck, Orlando:
According to HIPAA, immunization records are protected health information, notes Alexander. Therefore, if an employee has received a COVID-19 vaccine, it can only be disclosed by a healthcare provider if the employee has given the provider written authorization.
“Employers can ask their employees if they received the vaccine, but they can only request information from the employee’s medical provider, with his written authorization,” Alexander explains. “Once this information is obtained, it may not be disclosed by the employer without the employee’s consent.”
Alexander notes that the Guidelines for the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEOC) state that employers can ask employees to provide evidence that they have received a COVID-19 vaccine. However, disclosing information that reflects a disability could involve the Americans with Disabilities Act, she says.
It is not clear from the policy which management staff would have access to employees’ vaccination disclosures, however, given the requirements of the travel policy, managers and human resources should know the vaccination status of employees to monitor compliance. It is quite astonishing that Bridgestone does not manage the payment of the vaccine through a health and wellness provider or their health insurance company. Any of these would put a solid wall between the company and the employee’s protected health information, which, in the 15 years spent in HR, has always been the preferred situation.
A recent report by the Kaiser Family Foundation goes further. Key elements of this report call into question the ability of any company or private school to mandate a vaccine that the FDA has not fully approved and explains when mandates are subject to exemptions:
- Some private employers require influenza vaccines for employees in the medical environment, unless prohibited by state law, and some employers and universities have already established mandates for COVID-19 vaccination for employees and / or students; At the same time, several states have tried to limit their ability to do so.
- More generally, however, it is unclear whether COVID-19 vaccines can be mandated while operating under a EUA, and the courts have not yet ruled on the matter.
- When in force, in accordance with federal law, vaccination warrants may be subject to exemptions based on disabilities or religious objections.
The report also notes that states, which have a clear authority to request vaccinations, as they do for school attendance, do not use warrants for adult vaccinations. None indicated the intention to change this position with the COVID-19 vaccine. Some, like New York, let private companies do this for them with vaccine passports. Others, such as Florida, have banned the practice.
Next, the policy includes a question and answer, which puts the responsibility of individual employees to ask about the vaccination status of teammates in order to follow the necessary protocols for participation in group events and meals.
While the advice given says that choosing a person to be vaccinated or not to disclose that the status must be respected, the rest of the policy becomes a mandatory disclosure based on an employee’s behavior to comply with the policy.
For example, partially vaccinated and unvaccinated employees are asked not to visit multiple company facilities in a single trip as much as possible. If they fly, they cannot return to any company unit for at least five days and possibly ten days. After five days, if they receive a negative test and show no symptoms, without further contact with a positive COVID-19 individual, they may return and be asked to disguise themselves.
At some point, those partially vaccinated will not be subject to this requirement, but for the foreseeable future, those not vaccinated. Fully vaccinated employees are not subject to these restrictions, unless they fail the entrance tests or develop symptoms of COVID-19, a requirement for all employees. The absence of quarantine requirements indicates that Bridgestone’s management is confident that vaccinated employees are well protected and not likely to be vectors of transmission.
However, when interacting with their teammates and clients, vaccinated employees need to assess the vaccination status of others in order to comply with policy guidelines. For example, when eating with their unvaccinated associates, only outdoor dining is acceptable and all participants must wear masks. Unvaccinated and partially vaccinated employees are encouraged to receive meals on board or on board. If they choose to eat outdoors, their group is limited to four, and social distance must be maintained while eating together.
One question that arises is who protects these requirements if Bridgestone recognizes in their quarantine requirements that an asymptomatic vaccinated individual is well protected and is unlikely to transmit COVID-19. This hypothesis is well substantiated in the research conducted so far on vaccinated persons. All vaccines have shown excellent protection against symptomatic and severe diseases. Why are these employees not allowed to make their own risk determination without taking a survey of colleagues?
There are wide variations and legitimate debates in the medical community about the need to vaccinate recovered patients. What happens to those employees with a history of anaphylactic reactions, an inflammatory reaction to COVID-19 infection, or other pre-existing conditions such as HIV that make vaccination contraindicated? Will they accept a finding of robust antibody levels in an employee who has never had symptoms? Will Bridgestone allow patients to make the vaccination decision in partnership with their doctor under these conditions? The real question is how employees who simply choose not to be vaccinated will be treated in the future.
For employees whose job requires travel and customer interaction, restrictions such as those in Bridgestone policy will have an impact on their ability to do their job over time, whether or not they want to be vaccinated. Meanwhile, asking employees to ask about their colleagues’ vaccination status seems to create a peer pressure campaign when combined with different restrictions.
When I sent these questions to Bridgestone, the company provided the following official answer:
The well-being and safety of all Bridgestone employees remains the company’s most important value. With the changing environment of COVID-19, with new information on vaccine availability and to continue adapting our processes and protocols to meet business needs, we have recently updated the company’s business travel policy.
Throughout the pandemic, our employees have done an extraordinary job working to keep each other safe, while finding innovative ways to serve our customers and communities. Bridgestone remains committed to providing educational resources and support for the latest safety protocols, as well as information on the COVID-19 vaccine from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), so that employees can make informed decisions. .
This updated policy is designed to maintain the safety of our employees, customers and the public as our highest priority, while our employees travel in the company’s business, and Bridgestone remains committed to this endeavor.
Bridgestone’s commitment to employee safety is commendable. However, after talking to health care providers in the Southeast, there are many different perspectives on vaccination and treatment. Some are extremely successful in early outpatient treatment. Others are cautious about vaccinating those with active immunity.
While willing to speak in private, they refuse to speak in public or on record because they have seen the treatment of dissenting voices during the pandemic. The latest example is YouTube deleting a video of Governor Ron DeSantis talking to a group of highly regarded medical professionals. At the very least, they were highly regarded until they raised objections to blockades and masks. Many read and agree with research that is not widely communicated or recognized by the CDC and that influences their decision-making process.
Bridgestone is addressing these disputes within the medical community, calling for the protection of protected health information and creating policies that differentiate employees based on this information. The company will also have a few employees who will never be vaccinated for health reasons that it does not have to disclose. Or personal reasons that may include religious objections.
By the time the company navigates these issues, the vaccination status of traveling employees will be widely known due to updated policy requirements. Whether intentional or not, Bridgestone creates two classes of employees with their policy updates.