For the record I'm more than well aware of employment protections (but like I said Devils advocate).

Getting pregnant is entirely optional, unlike getting COVID

(Also get the public interest in population growth)

Kick-R said:

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tysker said:

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Why are we ok with corporations mandating no drug use or mandatory drug testing? If it's because we agree that drugs are bad for people and can negatively impact how business gets done, then apply that same argument to contracting covid.

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Drug and alcohol tests are specific to the job requirement for safety and performance purposes. Does getting covid affect job performance or safety of others? Not significantly more than showing up to work sick or walking around with a bag of peanuts.

In OPs situation, should the firm instead offer many more WFH options for non-covid vaxxed employees. Maybe treat it like a working mother having issues getting to the office during the last weeks/months of pregnancy? Firms often bend over backwards for pregnant workers and new moms needing to work from home when possible, so I would think firms would be willing to offer such service to it's non-vaxxed employees as well.

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I would argue that getting covid and ending up in the hospital for days/weeks affects job performance. And from a business perspective, there is a cheap and effective way to minimize that risk and potential downtime. It's a no-brainer if you're a business and you only consider productivity.

There is obviously a lot more nuance when you add in feelings, personal preferences, etc. to the equation. That's why many companies have not yet made the step to mandate. It's obvious at this point that nobody is just going to avoid exposure to covid (and most people probably already have had that exposure at this point), so the remaining viable mitigation options are either vaccinate or wait for it to run through the population.

Let me say again that I do not think that businesses or any other entity should be able to mandate vaccines or any other similar personal choice. But to look objectively at how a business runs and be surprised that mandates are being considered is foolish.

Let's talk about pregnancy in the same context. Pregnancy does create a situation where a worker is unable to work for an extended period of time. Pregnancy also comes with a minimum time window before that worker may become unavailable, during which time a business can be planning to make up for the shortfall. Pregnancy is not contagious, and can't be passed to other workers to create a domino effect.

Now imagine you have a business that is run and managed by a population that is 45+ years old. Suddenly, you introduce an illness that will spread easily and statistically be more dangerous to the population that makes the decisions and runs the business. Your entire leadership team goes down for 2 weeks, some for longer, and you're also in the middle of one of the greatest supply chain challenges of modern times. You can't control the supply chain at large, but you can reduce your own company's downtime with a safe and free vaccine. From a business perspective it just makes too much sense.

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If workplaces implemented similar vaccine requirements for the common cold, chicken pox, measles, flu, SARS, small pox, etc. you would have a point but most employers do not have similar responses to those infectious diseases. Why treat covid differently? What are the actual figures and what is logical flow through that is easily explainable to employees?

You say statistically more likely. By how much? Isn't it also true that returning to the the office generally more likely to be more dangerous to employees than WFH (i.e. commuting, exposure to non-covid illnesses, etc.)? From the outside, requiring covid vaxx while also returning to office is at best wash from a risk perspective for employees and employers. Each employer should be evaluating for itself what is best for its needs and employees but in my experience a top-down, one-size-fits-all approach rarely works best. Employees are smarter than they have ever been and have more options than ever. Employers are more than ever willing to work with employees about WFH, PTO, healthcare, etc. but are standing their ground on covid vaxx? Seems like an odd hill to die on, from a business perspective.

https://t.co/7EcGx8fgFC

— Bernadette Kathryn (@bkfitness) September 1, 2021

I really don't know of that many companies requiring vaccination yet. There have been a handful posted here, but I have not heard of that many mandates. Some companies are offering bonuses for vaccination, which is kind of the opposite of the mandate in a lot of ways. WFH isn't a bulletproof plan because people are still going to go to sports, grocery, church, etc.

Comparing covid to most of those just isn't a close enough analog. Chicken pox is maybe the closest one due to transmissibility and general severity, although covid seems to cause serious issues more often. But how many adults are getting chicken pox? The logic can't just ignore the scale at which the population is being infected, and the effect that it has on our medical systems. People are dying that probably shouldn't due to lack of access to medical care, partially caused by an influx of covid patients. If any of the other diseases listed were doing that then we'd be having this conversation about those, but they aren't.

I feel a continuing need to state that I am against mandates personally, but that every data point and metric points to them as the most effective way to reduce business impacts.

Zobel said:

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I don't know about flu but our sick related PTO is up 300% vs baseline 2019. Occam's razor.

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Or people are more willing to take the PTO? Are you certain they were actually ill or did they just use the PTO?

Zobel said:

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Our people are mostly hourly and we are slammed. They work or they don't get paid, and they make a lot more working than sitting at home due to OT. This is a real, measurable business impact for us. It's affecting our throughput and on time delivery numbers.

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Does that include parents who have to take time off when kids get quarantined for 10 days at a time?

Zobel said:

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Our people are mostly hourly and we are slammed. They work or they don't get paid, and they make a lot more working than sitting at home due to OT. This is a real, measurable business impact for us. It's affecting our throughput and on time delivery numbers.

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OK, were they actually sick with covid? Or are the quarantined or dealing with quarantined family members? Yes it's real, but their PTO use could be something other than the actual employee being sick with covid. Lots of parents have had to chose between working and using PTO to watch the grade schooler who was sent home for 10 days due to onerous (unnecessary, heavy handed?) covid protocols at their school.

Cool, but there's a difference between being sick or ill from covid and being away from work as required by covid protocols. How many employees were actually ill from covid and how many were paid to sit in quarantine for 10-14 days? If its the latter, that is evidence of the policy failure of companies using CDC guidelines.

harge57 said:

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Everyone is still ignoring that ~30% of the population has natural antibodies.

There is no scientific reason a healthy young person who already had covid should be forced to get the vaccine. The only thing that helps is calm the fears of the irrational.

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Are folks prepared to present their "papers" on said antibody test and do so on an ongoing basis? Its a slippery slope.

I for one think natural immunity has to be considered, but I don't know how to balance that without a standardized way of showing proof.

Constitutional right? If so, what part of the constitution prevents you from doing so?
Or do you not think it's ethically responsible?
Not trying to start something, but truly wondering what right I'm forgetting.

Is your firm forcing exposed workers to stay at home and use PTO? Even if they are asymptomatic and/or have a negative test?

By using CDC guidance, are firms able to deny healthy and willing hourly workers the ability to attend work which then forces those employees to use up all of their PTO and/or unused vacation? That seems crappy if the worker is not sick, just exposed. More evidence some policies could be more detrimental to the workers that don't have WFH options like many management positions.