Coronavirus Update 3-31-2021: Covid-19 vaccination cards will be required to do lots of things, including possibly even working

According to the Wall Street Journal, Covid-19 vaccination cards are our only proof of vaccination status and will soon be as essential as a drivers' license or passport. With no national or statewide centralized databases of vaccination records, the piece of paper you receive with your vaccine dose is your only proof of vaccination.  

The article suggests that we'll need this record to do lots of things moving forward, such as travel. What about returning to in-person work? Can employers ask for or require that employees provide proof of vaccination?

According to the EEOC, the answer is yes as to the ask. 

Is asking or requiring an employee to show proof of receipt of a COVID-19 vaccination a disability-related inquiry?

No. There are many reasons that may explain why an employee has not been vaccinated, which may or may not be disability-related. Simply requesting proof of receipt of a COVID-19 vaccination is not likely to elicit information about a disability and, therefore, is not a disability-related inquiry. However, subsequent employer questions, such as asking why an individual did not receive a vaccination, may elicit information about a disability and would be subject to the pertinent ADA standard that they be “job-related and consistent with business necessity.” If an employer requires employees to provide proof that they have received a COVID-19 vaccination from a pharmacy or their own health care provider, the employer may want to warn the employee not to provide any medical information as part of the proof in order to avoid implicating the ADA.

The question then becomes what does an employer do if an employee cannot provide proof of vaccination? If the vaccine is mandatory and a condition of employment, it can deny access to the workplace or even terminate, provided that it is considering exceptions for employees' disabilities and sincerely held religious beliefs, practices, and observances. If the vaccine is not mandatory, why ask for the vaccine record in the first place?

We are entering a very interesting era of privacy, including employee privacy. If you are not mandating the vaccine, while you are within your legal right to ask about vaccination status, why would you? Do you really want to catalogue your employees' vaccination status and for what purpose?

* Photo by Marco Verch Professional Photographer on Flickr [Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)]

Let's meet employees where they are on their pronouns

In Meriwether v. Hartop, the 6th Circuit recently decided that a state university cannot force a professor to use students' preferred gender pronouns, and permitted the prof to proceed with his lawsuit challenging the school's discipline for his misgendering.

Supporting our AAPI employees in their time of crisis

The stats are jarring, disturbing, and scary. During the past year of the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been nearly 3,800 reported anti-Asian hate incidents, including shunning, slurs, and physical attacks. That number represents a stunning 46 percent increase over the prior year, and still just a small percentage of the actual number that has occurred. These incidents culminated last week in Robert Aaron Long shooting and killing eight people at three Atlanta-area massage parlor.

Your AAPI (Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders) employees are hurting. Here are some thoughts on how we, as their employers, can best support them. 

Coronavirus Update 3-26-2021: 5 Considerations for Drafting Your COVID-19 Vaccination Policy

At some point over the next several months, most of your employees will receive one of the various COVID-19 vaccines that the Food & Drug Administration has approved for Emergency Use Authorization. As your employees consider whether and when to obtain the vaccine, you, as their employer, have numerous issues to consider regarding the vaccination status of your employees. You should also formalize these decisions in a written Vaccination Policy that you provide to each of your employees, so that everyone is on the same page as to your requirements and expectations regarding the vaccine.

What are the five key issues every employer should be considering and incorporating into a COVID-19 Vaccination Policy? You'll have to head over to the Wickens Herzer Panza website to find out. 

* Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash

Coronavirus Update 3-25-2021: Ohio legislature foolishly and dangerously limits the authority of the governor to respond to public health crises

"I can tell, as you're smirking at me not wearing a mask, you are not good at public health. This is not your lane, you need to get out of it."

Here was House Minority Leader Emilia Strong Sykes' floor speech criticizing the override vote for Senate Bill 22

"You are not good at public health," she tells maskless GOP colleagues pic.twitter.com/RYUCR1yxlx

— Tyler Buchanan (@Tylerjoelb) March 24, 2021

That's Ohio House Minority Leader Emilia Strong Sykes chastising her Republican colleagues for their support of Senate Bill 22, which Governor DeWine vetoed on Tuesday, and the state legislature overrode that veto yesterday.

What is S.B. 22? It limits the authority of the governor, Ohio Department of Health, and local health departments to respond to a public health crisis such as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. 

Coronavirus Update 3-24-2021: Which of your employees should you bring back to work

For the past year, an astounding 44 percent of employees have been working remotely full time, and two-thirds of employees have been working remotely at least one day per week. With vaccination rates on the rise and offering a light at the end of the pandemic tunnel, employers are starting to plan for bringing employees back to the physical workplace.

These decisions involve a lot of key questions an employer needs to answer in planning for where employees will work in a post-vaccine, post-pandemic world.

The 7th nominee for the “Worst Employer of 2021” is … the penny pincher

The law of every state I can think of requires that an employer timely provide a departed employee with his or her last paycheck. I know of no law that says how that final payment must be paid. There should be a law, however, that prohibits an employer from doing so by dumping a pile of oily pennies in someone's driveway.

That's exactly what happened to Andreas Flatens, who quit his job at A OK Walker Luxury Auto Shop because of the toxic work environment created by its owner, Miles Walker. He claims Walker then left his final paycheck of $1,000 (that's 100,000 pennies) in front of his home in pennies covered in some oily substance.