Posted on August 26th, 2021
Find below a complete transcript of this video.
Read this article for the common question we get: How long does an employer have to hold a job for someone on medical leave?
What’s up fellow entrepreneurs, today I want to talk about vaccinations in the workplace, but before we get to that, remember, I’m an attorney, but I’m not your attorney. So please seek out competent representation for your specific question or concern.
Now that California is opening back up and employees are being called back to work. A few questions are coming up about vaccinations first.
- Can employers require vaccinations?
- And the second question I get is, Can employees refuse vaccinations?
So both of these are great questions.
First, let’s talk about if California employers can require employees to return to work vaccinated. The answer is yes, there are not any federal state or local laws, but I’ve come across that prevent employers from requiring COVID-19 vaccinations for health and safety reasons.
However, the requirement for vaccination still has to follow other existing laws that require these rules to be non-discriminatory.
For example, you can’t require it for some and not for others. Second. Yes. Employees can object to being required to take the vaccine for health and safety reasons or for religious reasons.
If an employee were to oppose vaccinations for health reasons, the employer, as well within their rights to request a confirmation with a medical provider.
So I’ve not seen anything that requires proof for a religious objection. So maybe that’s the better objection. I don’t know. In a case of vaccine refusal for health or religious reasons, the employer is required to engage in the interactive process to determine if there is a reasonable accommodation before termination.
The employer would have to provide a reasonable accommodation unless such accommodation would create undue hardship for the business. So reasonable accommodations can include changing job duties, changing work schedules, or relocating the work area.
So if there are employees that have been working remotely, I think there’s going to be a tough argument for employers, where jobs that were previously being worked remotely during the pandemic, is not the same as an accommodation of relocating the worker.
And that’s just my thoughts. So let’s see what happens. The takeaway here from this video is that employers can require returning employees to have a COVID shot before returning to work.
And employees can refuse for health and religious reasons, but the risk is that they may be terminated if there’s not a reasonable accommodation, or the accommodation creates an undue hardship for the business.
I don’t see an end in sight for all of the problems that COVID is creating for businesses. We all know that California will come up with new rules and regulations.
We can only hope that these new rules and regulations are somewhat reasonable.
So until next time be productive.
