Will companies require employees be vaccinated?
With more access to the COVID-19 vaccine amid a slow return to normal, at least two Connecticut businesses that interact directly with vulnerable people are requiring employees to get inoculated, but it’s unclear if others will follow suit.
Now that the vaccine is available to everyone 16 and older, the question turns to how companies will handle whether employees receive a dose. While at least two companies in Connecticut have publicly acknowledged they will require employees to get vaccinated, most remain focused on education and incentives.
The Jewish Senior Services of Bridgeport and Community Resources Team of Hartford,
which work closely with people at risk of COVID-19, have required employees to get the vaccine to continue working.
“Given the population CRT serves on a daily basis, who in the most cases are vulnerable, it makes perfect sense for us to want to ensure both our employees and the people we serve are going to be safe, and the best way to do that is asking them to get vaccinated,” said Jason Black, a spokesman for Community Resources Team.
In a recent U.S. Census Bureau survey, nearly 80 percent of Connecticut companies polled said employees were not required to show proof of a vaccine, while another 18 percent said it was not applicable because employees were not going into the place of business.
It appears the decision will largely fall on employees with Gov. Ned Lamont saying he has no plans to have a state mandate.
While many businesses have not taken a formal public stance on the issue, JSS and CRT stress a vaccine requirement simply comes down to safety.
“I think most health care employers are moving in the direction of having it be a condition of employment, just as other vaccines are to work in health care,” Andrew Banoff, president of JSS, said in an interview last week with Hearst Connecticut Media. “We’re here to protect the frail elderly. We exist solely to take care of everybody’s parents and loved ones. Anything we can do to protect people is the most important priority of literally why we exist.”
Incentives more common
With the vaccine rollout just opening to all adults in Connecticut, many residents are still not vaccinated, so it may be too soon to tell if companies will lean on mandating employees to get inoculated.
“I’m not sure it’s a step that most companies are ready to take at this point,” said Diane Mokriski, human resources council for the Connecticut Business & Industry Association.
In conversations she’s had with some CBIA membership, Mokriski said, “it’s very rare for someone to tell me they are going to mandate” vaccines.
While a requirement that employees get vaccinated may be in discussions, Mokriski said employers are more focused on educating and incentivizing their workers to get one.
“I think most employers are either just doing their best to really educate employees on how to get it, what the benefits there are and that they are safe,” Mokriski said. “The second part would be incentives. I think that’s becoming more and more common for employers to give some extra motivation to get the vaccine if [the employees] were kind of just neutral on it.”
A number of companies from stores like Target, Dollar General and Aldi to the fast food restaurants like McDonald’s have found ways to incentivize employees to get vaccinated from paid time off to get a dose or extra hours on their time cards.
Raytheon, which employees thousands of people in Connecticut through Pratt & Whitney and Collins Aerospace, plans to give workers a small financial bonus to get vaccinated, first reported by Government Executive.
“It will depend upon the individual, but we have highly encouraged all of our employees to get vaccinated,” CEO Greg Hayes said during an interview streamed last week with the Economic Club of Washington. “In fact, there is a small financial reward that people get for getting vaccinated. A health care benefit that they get some additional cash.”
Can employers mandate vaccine?
Though few Connecticut companies are mandating vaccines, federal agencies have provided some legal guidance on the matter.
In December, the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission published a guide that suggests employers can ask if an employee has been vaccinated. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it becomes a matter of state law whether to address if employers can mandate an employee get vaccinated.
Lamont said last week that he believes employers requiring people get vaccinated “makes a certain amount of sense,” referencing how some health care companies require people to get flu vaccines.
“But again, I’m not going to mandate that. I think every business will decide for themselves,” Lamont said.
The legislature has not brought up requiring COVID-19 vaccines, but of the dozen or so bills addressing inoculations, there’s one that would prevent employers from taking adverse actions against employees who refuse to get the shot.
Rep. Anne Dauphinais, R-Killingly, who proposed the bill, said she believes asking about vaccine status is another form of discrimination.
“There’s so many rules and regulations with regard to discrimination and being discriminated against,” Dauphinais said.
“This is one of those additional things that would discriminate against a group of people ... that would chose not to participate in big pharma and the vaccine,” she added.
The EEOC and CDC included language in the guidance acknowledging exemptions for medical and religious reasons. JSS and CRT have said employees can seek those exemptions from the vaccine requirement.
“At this point, we are more than a third fully vaccinated and we’ve had four people that have requested exemption,” CRT’s Black said. “We do allow for people to request exemptions.”