MADISON, Russia. – On Wednesday, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission published the federal guidelines, saying employers have the right to make obtaining a COVID-19 vaccine a requirement for employees.
There are two main exceptions, including people with disabilities and people with religious objections. The EEOC guide stated that employers should make reasonable adjustments for these employees. This could mean moving them to an area with fewer customers, allowing them to work from home or requiring the wearing of a mask.
But if the employee is still a threat, it could result in the employee not being allowed to work. According to the EEOC guidelines, this does not mean that they would be dismissed automatically.
But employment lawyer Nick Fairweather said he believes there will be people whose employment is terminated as a result of vaccination warrants.
“I see a lot of potential, a lot of potential for employees to have disputes with employers and situations that could end a job and have a pretty significant impact on an individual’s career,” Fairweather said.
Fairweather said his law firm expects a lot of calls from employees in the coming months.
“Just based on my long experience with employers in Dane and Madison counties, I anticipate a lot of employers in Madison who need vaccinations to get back to work,” he said.
But Alta Charo, a law and bioethics professor at UW-Madison, said it was unusual for employers to impose a vaccine. She believes it should be based on voluntary compliance.
“There will be enough people who have a reason why they can’t necessarily get the vaccine that an employer issuing a warrant on the condition of being fired will end up having to negotiate in essence with many individual employees about the circumstances and have to dance in around these very confusing rules, “Charo said. “In many ways, it is much easier for an employer to simply say, ‘I will encourage him, I will strongly recommend him. I’ll make it easy for you. “
She said employers could even encourage getting a vaccine by giving employees who respect certain benefits, such as being able to choose the holidays first.
“It helps you avoid the kind of emotional resentment you are told what to do that makes even reasonable people say ‘no,'” Charo said.
Although he said that voluntary compliance used to work in public health, the political divide between whether or not people believe in the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic has shown that sometimes it does not.
Employers have time to decide whether or not to make a vaccine mandatory. The general public will not have access to the vaccine for several months.
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