Businesses mull employee vaccination requirement

by requiring vaccinations or those they will turn away if they don’t?

“Businesses are in business to make money,” said Deborah DeLong, a marketing professor at Chatham University. “There’s nothing wrong with that, but ideally businesses can also fulfill societal goals.

“I think businesses always have some level of responsibility. ... Businesses certainly have a lot of power.”

‘Good health sense, good business sense’

Under Pennsylvania law, employers can legally choose to mandate a vaccine as long as they provide for certain exceptions for religious and medical reasons under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Nationally, the list of those employers who are taking the plunge and putting mandates in place seems to grow every day, including big names like Google, Disney, Facebook, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Netflix and Tyson Foods.

Retailer Walmart is requiring proof of vaccination for corporate employees but not for workers in stores.

Government officials have not made blanket vaccine mandates, but new employees for the City of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County are required to show proof of vaccination while federal workers must attest they have been vaccinated or agree to mandatory masking and weekly testing.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration released guidance that encouraged employers not only to provide time off to get the vaccine and to recover from any side effects but also to set up policies that required workers to get their shot or undergo regular testing.

Some employers are even tacking on extra perks like vacation days or financial bonuses.

“People always respond to incentives,” said Risa Kumazawa, an economics professor at Duquesne University. “If somebody suddenly alters how we value our benefits and costs, it could flip our decision. I think this is what we’re seeing. We’re seeing Economics 101.”

In March, a survey from the International Data Corp., a research firm based in Massachusetts, found that about half of participating companies in North America planned to require vaccinations for all employees working on site. Another 9% said the vaccinations would be required for workers regardless of their location.

Amy Loomis, research director for IDC’s Future of Work service, said she has only seen momentum grow since then.

The trend is part of a broader movement to focus on employee safety and wellness, she said. That’s happening partly because it’s bad business to constantly be scrambling for enough healthy people to fill a shift and partly because research shows positive employee experiences translate to more positive customer experiences.

“It was happening before, but COVID really amplified it,” Ms. Loomis said. “There wouldn’t be this kind of momentum toward requirements if it didn’t make good health sense and good business sense.”

Denise Rousseau, a professor of organizational behavior and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University, suggested thinking about it this way: An employer has a duty to ensure that the roof won’t cave in when workers come in to the building or that the computers won’t emit toxic fumes or that the factory equipment won’t explode.

Employers, she said, “have some sort of duty to care.”

A return to normalcy

Crafting a vaccination policy should factor in all the same practices as coming up with something like a family leave policy, Ms. Rousseau said.

A company should think about what goal it is trying to achieve, how to be consistent with its approach, what resources it needs to make the policy feasible and the opinions of stakeholders, including employees, customers and investors.

When it comes to vaccines, those opinions may hold a little more sway than usual.

“The issue about vaccination policy, often it comes down not so much to what the science indicates … but rather the political conversations that are raised,” Ms. Rousseau said.

As of this week, about 72% of the adult population in the U.S. had received at least one dose of a COVID19 vaccine, according to data from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

In a June survey, the foundation found that of those who had not gotten vaccinated, most said they were concerned because the vaccine was too new or were worried about the side effects. About 43% just did not want the vaccine, while another 38% said they did not trust the government.

Ms. Rousseau, who has a background in psychology, expects vaccines and the policies that require them for employment will eventually catch on. It will be a gradual process, she said, but people’s desire to return to normalcy will win out.

“I’m expecting companies will bite the bullet despite the political implications.”

A risky labor market

Clare Gallagher, a labor attorney with Eckert Seamans, which has offices Downtown, said some employers are taking a wait-andsee approach.

Some are waiting for full authorization from the Food and Drug Administration, which so far has approved the vaccines for emergency use. Others are still working out negotiations with the unions representing workers. And others are waiting to see if there is a “big shoe drop” on the companies that have already taken a stance.

“What we’re facing right now is — with these upticks in [case] numbers, the concern with the variant and COVID fatigue — employers are struggling with what can they mandate? What is best for their employees and employee relations?” Ms. Gallagher said.

As businesses have reopened, employers say they’re having trouble filling open roles. It has become common to see signs looking for help and advertising bonuses and other benefits — and signs asking patrons to be nice to workers as the business is extra short-staffed that day.

The number of job openings in the U.S. jumped to 10.1 million in June, from 9.5 million in May, according to data released this month from the U.S. Labor Department.

“The candidate market is still so challenging,” said Jarid Weaver, director for the Northeast with Adecco, a staffing agency.

“Adding an additional requirement is already going to put additional stressors on companies who are already understaffed and have some productivity gaps.”

Adecco has started to see an increase in applicants as vaccinations continue, schools prepare to reopen and federal unemployment programs that extend and expand jobless benefits near expiration.

The delta variant could reverse that trend again, Mr. Weaver said.

“Employers are struggling with what can they mandate? What is best for their employees and employee relations?” — Clare Gallagher, labor attorney with Eckert Seamans

Leading by example

Barrel and Flow had wanted to put in a mandate from the beginning, Mr. Bracey said, but the event’s organizers were waiting for assurance they legally could ask for personal information like vaccination status. As a private organization putting on an event, the group could be as strict as it wanted, their attorney said.

“Ultimately, you don’t have the right to a festival,” Mr. Bracey said when explaining the logic.

The group felt an obligation to lead by example for other businesses and events in the region as well as for people in the Black community, who they aim to represent.

Mr. Bracey hopes the festival could offer another incentive to get vaccinated for those who may have been on the fence about the shot but knew they wanted to attend — or at least offer another reason to bring up the conversation with family and friends.

“We felt it was important, being leaders in this community, that we set a standard and say ‘Hey, I need to go get vaccinated,’ ” he said. “This is something that, simply, that we believe in.”