No Tolerance for the Unvaccinated: Get a Shot or Get Fired

Now that the Tucson City Council made Covid vaccinations mandatory for all 4,300 employees, more businesses and employers are doing the same.

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich said in a 40-page legal opinion that businesses are free to impose mask mandates and vaccine mandates. And companies have the right to make the same demand of customers.

Banner Health, which has 52,000 employees in Arizona, now requires employees to be vaccinated by November 1 to continue working for the company.

Zero tolerance

Showing no tolerance for anti-vaxxers, major national companies are firing employees who refuse vaccinations.

CNN has fired three employees who violated company policy by coming to work unvaccinated against Covid-19, The Guardian reports.

“Let me be clear–we have a zero-tolerance policy on this,” Jeff Zucker, chairman of news and sports for CNN, told employees.

CNN also delayed a planned September 7 company-wide return to the office until October.

Other media companies have been making similar decisions because of the virulence of the Covid Delta variant that has sickened vaccinated employees.

In Silicon Valley, Google, Facebook, and Uber recently announced that vaccinations are mandatory for employees returning to the office.

New York City and California are requiring all government workers to be vaccinated or face regular testing.

United Airlines is the first airline to mandate vaccinations for all its U.S. employers, now that Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine received full approval on August 23, and approval for the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccinations is imminent. Employers said the approval would make it easier to mandate the shot.

Wall Street’s Morgan Stanley is accelerating efforts to ensure employees comply with vaccination rules to enter its buildings. The firm told staff to provide documentation of their shots by October 1.

Cruise Ships, Universities and Nursing Homes

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden is considering using federal law to withhold funds from a variety of institutions, ranging from cruise ships to universities to nursing homes.

“This could lead to tens of thousands of people across the United States without work or access to unemployment benefits, according to MarketWatch.

In most states, individuals must prove they’re out of work through no fault of their own to collect unemployment benefits.

Some employers are firing workers who won’t take the vaccine, and others require unvaccinated employees to submit to weekly testing and take other safety precautions. In addition, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has weighed in with guidance that answers some workplace vaccination questions.

For example, the agency said that federal anti-discrimination laws don’t prohibit employers from requiring all employees who physically enter the workplace to be vaccinated for COVID 19.

“An employee with a religious objection or a disability may need to be excused from the mandate or otherwise accommodated,” notes John Lomax, an attorney with Snell & Wilmer in Phoenix.

Tucson Bishop Edward Weisenburger has directed the Catholic clergy not to grant religious exemptions for COVID-19 vaccination mandates or mask requirements. “I fail to see how a Catholic could ask for an exemption from a vaccine mandate or mask mandate based upon their Catholic faith,” Weisenburger wrote.

If a non-vaxxing employee is a union member, the employer may need to bargain and reach an agreement with the union before mandating vaccines.”

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), an employer can have a workplace policy that includes “a requirement that an individual shall not pose a direct threat to the health or safety of individuals in the workplace.

“If an employee who cannot be vaccinated poses a direct threat to the workplace, the employer must consider whether a reasonable accommodation can be made, such as allowing the employee to work remotely or take a leave of absence,” attorney Lomas concluded.

Biden Urges Companies to Step Up Efforts

Politico reports that President Biden pressed business and public leaders to require vaccines after the FDA issued its first full approval of a Covid-19 vaccine.

“I’m calling on more companies in the private sector to step up with vaccine requirements that reach millions of more people,” Biden said. “If you’re a business leader, a nonprofit leader, a state or local leader, who has been waiting for full FDA approval to require vaccinations, I call on you now to do that.”

Biden this month mandated vaccinations or routine testing for millions of federal workers, and the Pentagon said it would require them for active military. He said that more than 170 million people in the U.S. are fully vaccinated against the virus. In contrast, 30 million more have received at least one shot of the two-dose regimen.

Six million shots were administrated in seven days in August, the highest number since mid-June.