Vaccines" Most employers shy away from mandating shots, some colleges require them

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Sat, 2021-05-22 11:20 — mike kraft

Most employers shy away from mandating coronavirus vaccines While scores of colleges and a handful of travel companies have made the shots compulsory, others hold back, fearing a backlash and lawsuits. Dan Diamond Washington Post

The email set out an ambitious — and uncompromising — goal: Get vaccinated or get ready to find another job.

“We must lead by example and get vaccinated ourselves,” Houston Methodist CEO Marc Boom wrote to his managers on March 31.

Boom’s vaccine mandate is among only a handful issued by health-care institutions in America. While more than 380 colleges and universities, generally in blue states, and a few travel companies have imposed vaccine mandates, most other employers have held back, worried about the difficult politics surrounding the coronavirus vaccines and the untested legal issues involving vaccines cleared under the Food and Drug Administration’s emergency authority.

Boom’s mandate worked — more than 98 percent of the hospital’s 26,000 employees are now vaccinated ahead of a June 7 deadline, including more than 3,000 who got the shots after Boom’s call to action. But the hospital chain fired its director of corporate risk and insurance for refusing to get inoculated, and it is now facing a broader backlash. ...

The clash in Houston reflects a messy dynamic playing out in workplaces and on college campuses around the country. Even as health experts clamor for incentives to convince wary Americans to get vaccinated, touting the shots’ proven safety and effectiveness, Republican politicians, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, have explicitly barred state agencies from mandating vaccinations or issuing “vaccine passports” that would track whether people get shots.

“At least 36 states have attempted to pass legislation that you cannot compel people to get a vaccine as a condition of either employment or, sometimes, obtaining products and services,” said Wendy Lazerson, a lawyer who co-chairs law firm Sidley Austin’s labor and employment practice.

Lazerson added that the dynamics are changing by the day and the legal precedent is unsettled. “It’s very hard to keep track of when we have to be mindful of the local, the state, and the national forces here, because they’re all different,” she said.

For instance, Miami-based Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, which announced plans to require all passengers and crew members to be fully vaccinated, is locked in negotiations with DeSantis after the governor banned businesses from requiring proof of vaccinations. The cruise giant insists its plan is legal and has threatened to pull its business from Florida if the state does not allow it to move forward — a threat that DeSantis has publicly dismissed. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended, but not required, that cruise passengers and crew get vaccinated. ...

ALSO SEE: For Colleges, Vaccine Mandates Often Depend on Which Party Is in Power

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