Human resources expert offers commentary on this breaking story
Yesterday President Biden directed the Labor Department to mandate that any companies with more than 100 employees either require the COVID vaccination or COVID test all their employees once a week.
“Those companies that don’t comply could face thousands of dollars in fines per employee,” says Rob Wilson, HR expert and President of Employco USA, an employment solutions firm with locations across the country. “This means that even those employers who may disagree with the mandate or dislike requiring the vaccination are left with very little choice: They will have to require the mandate or face costly fines that could cost them their business.”
Meanwhile, United Airlines just made international headlines after it was revealed that the airline giant is putting all unvaccinated employees on unpaid leave, even if they have a religious exemption.
“It’s becoming very clear that if you want a job in this country, you may have to face the fact that getting the COVID vaccine will be a job requirement. Even IF you have certain exemptions,” says Wilson. United Airlines has announced that employees who cannot get the COVID vaccine due to religious, medical, or personal exemptions will be put on unpaid leave until the pandemic meaningfully recedes.
Wilson says that UA will also thoroughly investigate employees’ vaccine exemptions, and if they don’t hold water, the employee must get the vaccine by Sept. 27 or risk being terminated.
“People are arguing that this is unconstitutional but United Airlines is well within their rights. Many companies are going to be following suit, so Americans should expect that employers can and will be requiring COVID vaccines in many industries.” says Wilson.
“High-risk fields like those in healthcare, travel, and hospitality have a strong incentive to require the jab. If a company has a positive COVID-19 case, not only is that a serious health concern, but you could be looking at shutting down your location for 2 weeks or more for sanitizing. It’s a serious liability, not just financially but also when it comes to alerting your staff and customers and making sure you’re doing your due diligence to protect everyone under your company umbrella.”
But is it fair to penalize workers who cannot receive the vaccine for various reasons?
“If your employee demonstrates a sincere faith-based or moral-based objection to vaccinations, you might not be within your rights to require vaccinations from that particular employee,” says Wilson. “But, as United Airlines demonstrates, you don’t have to put that person back in a customer-facing position or in close contact with other staff members. You have the right and responsibility to create a safe workplace for your employees as well as for customers, and unvaccinated employees do put everyone at increased risk. Employers can and should mitigate that risk by putting those unvaccinated workers in different positions where they aren’t working with the public or in tight spaces. And in some industries like hospitality, that might just mean putting these workers on unpaid leave until the pandemic is well-managed.”
With this in mind, when should employers start putting their vaccination requirements into action?
“Now,” says Wilson. “Even if you don’t have 100 employees. Now is the time to start thinking about this thorny issue and getting your legal and human resources teams on the same page. You may even want to outsource this issue to a company like Employco, because we are expecting a lot of employees to be angry and frightened at the prospect of forced immunizations. Employers need to expect this to be a bit of a headache, and the sooner they get a plan in place, the better.”
For more on this topic, please contact Rob Wilson at rwilson@thewilsoncompanies.com.