Can employers mandate some employees get the vaccine and not others? Is there an obligation to consider requiring a COVID-19 test before coming back to work? What are the potential workers’ compensation claims relating to possible adverse reactions to a vaccine? Should employers mandate vaccinations?
In this article, McDermott partners Carole Spink, Joseph Mulherin, Kathleen Quinn and Troy Van Dongen answer common employer questions about the COVID-19 vaccine.
As governments around the world move to end lockdown restrictions, employers are examining how—and if—to bring their employees back to work. In this video, McDermott partner Carole A. Spink provides insight into the challenges facing both employers and employees.
“The issue here in the US is a pragmatic one,” Spink notes. “How do you do that and get buy-in from employees and return them in a reasonable way?”
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently offered employers leeway to relax safety rules for fully vaccinated workers. However, experts say that validating who is vaccinated is rife with potentially costly missteps. In an article published in Law360, McDermott partner Michelle S. Strowhiro said employers must be careful not to ask follow-up questions unless they are implementing a mandatory policy or “taking a position that vaccination status is job-related and consistent with business necessity.”
On June 21, 2021, the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) long-anticipated Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) for COVID-19 requirements in the healthcare industry went into effect. Most of the requirements must be followed by July 6, 2021; the remainder (on implementing physical barriers, improved ventilation systems and employee trainings) must be implemented no later than July 21, 2021, according to McDermott’s Abigail M. Kagan and Michelle S. Strowhiro. OSHA’s COVID-19 safety requirements are workplace-specific. Employers who have some employees working in a patient setting and other employees working in a corporate setting may need to follow the requirements only for the patient-based setting.
As governments lift COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, employers are turning to artificial intelligence tools to accelerate their hiring processes.
However, these AI-based tools can open businesses up to discrimination claims if they are not careful, according to McDermott partner Brian Mead.
“[The technology] could decide that certain words [are] unlikely to [yield] successful candidates, and then it’s prescreening out members of protected classes and categories of applicants in a discriminatory way,” Mead said in a recent Law360 article.
When the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) relaxed its mask guidance in May, the news caught many people—especially corporate America—off guard.
In this Forbes article, McDermott partner Michael W. Peregrine argues that companies need to provide stakeholders with clear health and safety messaging in light of mandates from state and local governments.
“Companies can ill-afford to drift in the wind of confusion and controversy, and they can’t be blindsided by further guidance change should there be an increase in reported cases or should variants, like those first found in India, surface in the United States,” Peregrine writes.
As more businesses reopen in the wake of COVID-19, many employees are seeking to continue their remote work arrangements indefinitely.
In this Los Angeles Times article, McDermott partner Michelle S. Strowhiro suggests employees share their wishes with their employer sooner instead of later.
“Now is the time to help shape those policies,” Strowhiro notes.
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