I’m not sure this has a GQ answer. So I’m putting it in Debates. I have a hunch this will eventually get settled after a prolonged legal battle.
Is it legal for any employer to require flu shots? Can health care providers (such as Trihealth) require flu shots because they deal so intimately with the public? How about food prep people like butchers and cooks? I had to get a TB test in high school before I could serve food in the cafeteria line. Would a required flu shot be an extension of that public health program?
Can mandatory flu shots be seen as an extension of the mandatory school vaccination programs?
There is a big difference in vaccination programs and flu shots. Vaccinations typically offer lifetime protection and they are extremely effective. Flu shots offers a few months protection and you can still potentially get the flu.
I haven’t really decided on this question myself. I’ve gotten my free flu shot from my employer since 1994. If it wasn’t free then I’d happily pay to get one.
But, making them mandatory for all employees? I’m just not sure. It’s an interesting balance between the need for public health and individual rights. I definitely support the mandatory school immunization programs.
This is America. Workers have very few rights. As long as they were not a protected class of some sort, and the refusal was not based on a cultural or religious basis, then employers have pretty wide leeway. The courts would be more interested in the employment agreements, company handbook, etc. to see if there were contractual issues.
On the other hand, I’m glad the anti-vax nuts were fired.
I’m curious if the employer has committed a patient-privacy violation by basing their employment decision on whether or not the employees took a particular treatment.
IANAL but from what I can gather the legality of such is questionable and may vary depending on what state laws are as well. OTOH they can be required to wear masks and other infectious control garb while working during flu season if they do not get vaccinated.
That is of course different than whether or not they should be. They are exposing high risk individuals. To knowingly increase the health risks of the people they are supposed to be caring for is, to my mind, inexcusably wrong even if it is legal.
To sidestep this a minute, I live in Ohio, and to answer is it legal to fire employee’s for refusal to get one, without more research, I would say it is legal.
I live in Ohio also, and in addition to the well known exceptions to “at will” employment, which Ohio of course follows, there are only a few others, one is a Public Policy Exception. This means an employer can not terminate an employee if it would violate PP, and below indicates (from case law), that it can be a policy other then a statute.
“Clear public policy” sufficient to justify an exception to
the employment-at-will doctrine is not
limited to public policy expressed by the
General Assembly in the form of statutory
enactments, but may also be discerned as a
matter of law based on other sources, such
as the Constitutions of Ohio and the United
States, administrative rules and
regulations, and the common law.
fumster mentioned this:
I do not know if Ohio courts have considered the language/provision (s) of a handbook as contractual and binding in nature to any extent? Some states have ruled they are, fact and emphasis specific.
This is of course assuming they are of a protective nature to the employee to begin with.
My guess is, the company consulted legal counsel first for such a move?
That’s a pretty broad brush isn’t it? Not wanting to get a flu shot is hardly in the same league as, “don’t give my kid a measles vaccination, that will give him Aspergers!” or whatever the argument-du-jour is.
I don’t want a flu vaccine because, a) I don’t think they work all that well, and b) I trust my immune system enough on this front. But I’m hardly an “anti-vax nut.”
Agreed. I don’t get a flu shot because I’ve never ever had the flu. You say I’m knocking on wood. Maybe, but when I get it once, I promise the very next year I’ll get a shot. Why get a shot to avoid something that a) won’t kill me and b) I’ve never had.
Health care workers are a different kettle of fish though, and I’m not as sure about them.
The flu? Because…well, you’ve got a point, but I’ve also never been stung by a bee and that could theoretically kill me and I don’t go around looking for a vaccine for that either!
I mean, healthy people with good nutrition don’t generally die of the flu. I hear people feel like they want to die, but that’s different.
Well, how do you know you won’t get hit by a bus every time you cross the street? We manage risks like this every day. It’s extremely rare for healthy adults to die from flu. It’s also extremely rare for people to have adverse complications from flu shots. So the times when my employer has offered free on-site shots, I get them. I haven’t sought them out otherwise, though. Didn’t really seem worth the effort.
I might change my mind about it when I’m a geezer.
I am supportive of the requirement that healthcare workers receive a flu shot, or wear a mask and gloves during flu season. Our state board has just made such a recommendation.
HIPAA is the first thing I think of. Doesn’t it also include a clause that I don’t have to share my medical information to anyone I don’t want to? Because that would seem to be what is happening here: these people are being fired because they refuse to let these people know if they’ve gotten a flu shot.
And, I’m not going to get any extra vaccinations after I almost died from my MMR shot. I was clinically dead for 45 minutes. I even got to opt out of later vaccinations for public school because they tested my immunity.
I get vaccinations I need, and no more. And if I never catch the flu, despite being exposed to it, I don’t need it. Why don’t they let me opt out the way I opted out of my MMR, by testing my immunity, if that’s really what they are concerned about?
Again the issue here is not if a worker should be forced to do something for their own health. The issue is if they should/can be forced to do something to reduce the risk of their imperiling the health of others. This is about their making a decision to expose vulnerable individuals because they decide that the benefit to themselves is not great enough to bother.
High risk individuals often do not get a great response to the flu vaccine. The best way to protect them is to reduce their exposure in reasonable ways. Their coming into a healthcare facility and getting exposed to a worker who has what is to them, a mild case of influenza, is not right. Legally required, maybe, depending on individual state laws I guess, but still heinous.
I don’t work in a healthcare capacity. The government has deemed that healthcare workers NEED to have the shot, and no one else does. Until they make me have it, or I get the flu, I am not getting it.
If someone is susceptible and not healthy, they should, by all means, get the shot. I am healthy, and I won’t get the shot. I’m not even sure what your urine comment means.
Most employees are “at will” employees and can be fired for any stupid reason.
“TriHealth” implies a health industry, so I do not see how it would be unreasonable to request your employees be vaccinated against deadly and easily transmitted diseases.
My employer gives me a flu shot every year. I see no problem with this.
They didn’t list all of the employees that they fired, by name, so there is no disclosure. I’m sure there were other people let go that same day for other reasons as well.
(Clinically dead for 45 minutes? No breathing or blood circulation for that long, when irreversible brain damage is usually present after 3 minutes without oxygen? OK.)
My workplace (a hospital) requires non-vaccinated people to wear masks when dealing with the public and to provide religious exemption requests ahead of time. I wish they’d do away with that exemption, frankly; it’s silly. We had previously-healthy patients die from H1N1 complications.
Mika, the flu does kill people. But that’s not quite why you should get a flu shot. You should get a flu shot because by doing so, you reduced the possibility that you may contract an communicable illness which, while admittedly unlikely to be fatal to you, may well kill immuno-compromised people who dare not get the vaccine, and who cannot be vaccinated but must instead rely on herd immunity.
The disclosure was when they were asked to tell THEIR EMPLOYER whether or not they’d taken the shot.
And, yes. I was declared dead, with my body all turned blue at 16 months after an extremely high fever. Maybe the fact that they put me in an ice bath saved me, I don’t know. I do know the doctors told my parents I was dead, and that they had a prayer vigil, and then I came back. The doctors said I’d be a vegetable all my life. I clearly wasn’t, and didn’t even have any cognitive deficits. The only result was some OCD.
It’s okay if you choose to disbelieve me, I guess, but then I really have a vested interest in not allowing you to make my healthcare decisions for me. Especially since you don’t believe in even basic religious tolerance. You know, the thing you enjoy yourself in why being an atheist doesn’t persecuted in this country.
