And since HR keeps pay secret, this also is a non-issue.
But it is not, since only payroll or HR knows that info.
But this is about ethics, not law. What if the $300 is for the employees full genetic profile, and these particular employees could really, really use an extra $300. Still ethical?
HR usually doesn’t have access to any other medical data about you.
I can think of cases where it would be unethical to incentivise a medical procedure, especially offering short term incentives for something that might cause long term harm, like paying someone to get sterilized when they need cash.
But in this case, i feel like offering payment is actually leveling the playing field. It is offering a short term benefit to offset the short-term costs of getting vaxxed (potential lost work, feeling crappy for a day or three) with the expected long-term outcome to be a benefit to the person. That feels extremely ethical to me.
Turns out something is wrong with the vaccine. There is a 5% chance of extremely expensive medical procedures that will have to be paid for by insurance anywhere from 3-4 years from now.
HR has a list of everyone who has taken the $300 payment…
(Again, I’d like to reiterate that this is a devil’s advocate position. Personally I think for overriding public policy reasons, it is ethical)
My first thought was that a substantial payment – say US $300 – would be unethical because low-paid workers, having a genuine and strong medical contraindication, would be incentivized to risk their health. But, googling, and I hope I didn’t miss anything, it appears that none of us have a long-term, strong, medical contraindication to all three U.S. authorized COVID vaccine:
Assuming that to be true, I am OK with such payments outside a direct health care setting.
In a direct health care setting, I think an ethical employer will require staff to take all recommended vaccines. So the payment issue will not arise.
I just found that Rutgers university is requiring students to be vaccinated, but not health care workers:
Now, that’s unethical.
I realize that there would be hospital employee pushback it they acted in the way I think is ethical. It is a classic choice between the harder right and easier wrong.
That’s cute that you believe that.
Oh yes they do. They know what insurance you bought, if you got a health saving plan, beneficiaries and other things.
I don’t see any moral problem with influencing people to do something that is go for them. Even if it’s something they wouldn’t have done on their own.
Now doing the opposite would be immoral. It would be wrong to offer people money to not get vaccinated.
We can’t pretend that this is a neutral issue. Getting vaccinated is beneficial. Incentivizing people to do something that is beneficial to themselves is moral. Incentivizing people to do something that may harm them (which could include giving your genetic profile to your employer) is immoral.
Would it be unethical to give them health insurance? or a drug program? Or a stop smoking program or a AA program?
WV Governor to offer $100 to people ages 16 to 35 who get vaccinated:
For this company specifically, the only ethics issue I can see is that it disadvantages the small number of people who genuinely can’t get the vaccine. OTOH, they will likely be happier than everyone else to know their co-workers are being vaccinated.
Presumably the employer also provides health insurance and paid time off that would cover any side-effects from the vaccine. Otherwise that would really be an ethics issue - yes, covid can have very bad effects, but the employer isn’t telling people to go out and lick a covid patient.
The bonus itself is a bonus. It’s not deducting money from expected wages that an employee has budgeted their lives around.
If this sort of thing were to become commonplace I could see it becoming a problem - employees refusing to get the vaccine until they were offered a bonus to do it. Fortunately we’re at a stage in the vaccine schedule where that’s really unlikely.
(Just so you know, it’s undue influence, not undo).
I would say under certain circumstances it can be unethical in the way that offering to buy someone’s kidney for $500 would be unethical, though you would get takers somewhere in the world. It is taking advantage of someone in a dire situation.
So if someone feels like they have to do it to get the $300, and they really need that cash that would be unethical. But I don’t feel this is the case if this company has well paid employees, $300 should not cause anyone to cross that line. However if this company has eligible low wage earners it may.
It could be thought of as sharing the wealth, the company knows that vaccinated employees are good for business and should make more money and sending out a thank you payment for the employees who have made it possible.
Meh, pretty clear that @turtlescanfly’s wife is a person of very strong opinions. I’d put good money on this scenario - she said to one, maybe two colleagues that she was having an argument with her husband about this issue and put her view to them in terms that made it clear she was massively emotionally invested. They nodded along because (a) its easier and (b) that’s what people (especially women, and most nurses are women) do to be supportive in the context of someone describing a debate they are having with their spouse.
There is virtually no “other side” to this argument. So Mrs turtlescanfly is arguing from authority and desperately needs more “authority” so she brought up her colleagues as absent supporting authorities.
As to “ethics classes” there are few fields of learning more subjective and susceptible to the vagaries of personal opinion and the ever changing winds of fashion.
This is true.
I’m not that concerned, relative to some people, with bodily autonomy. This doesn’t mean I value it zero. But I value my family not getting COVID more than a nurse’s freedom to inadvertently pass on the disease. So I think that if a hospital lets unvaccinated people treat us, that’s unethical.
One question I would ask those who think strongly incentivized immunization is wrong: What if a new more deadly COVID strain — perhaps targeting the young — arises. Is there any death rate where you would say voluntary doesn’t cut it? I hope the answer is yes — in which case we disagree while sharing the same values differently distributed.
Larry Hogan, perhaps the only sane Republican in the country, has authorized a $100 bonus to state employees who get the vaccine.
But as you sorta pointed out- it is really a big advantage. Now they can go to work, knowing that 95% of their co-workers are vaccinated, and feel a lot safer.
Liz Cheney might be feeling a little aggrieved by your post.
Agreed. But it would probably sting to know you could get $300 if you were able to get the vaccine. Also that, in a sane world, you’d be able to prove that by a doctor’s letter and maybe get the payment for showing willing, but in this world the employer would be beset by people claiming they were unable to get the vax even though what they mean is I don’t wanna.