Vax up or move on! Time for Idaho businesses to require COVID-19 vaccines for employees

Back to normal? Not so fast.

COVID-19 vaccinations slowed, the delta variant of the novel coronavirus is spreading and COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, ICU admissions and deaths are back on the rise.

It’s time for Idaho businesses to step up and tell their employees: Vax up or move on.

A lot of us want to go back to the office, but if we go back to our workplace and no one is wearing a mask, we know that roughly 40% to 60% of our co-workers are not vaccinated.

With so many unvaccinated people, that allows the spread of coronavirus, endangering the lives of others, including children 11 and younger, who can’t get vaccinated yet.

We’re also learning more about “breakthrough” cases of vaccinated people contracting COVID-19, which puts even more co-workers at risk, quarantines family members, forces kids to stay home from summer jobs and jeopardizes a safe return to school.

It’s time for more businesses to start mandating the vaccine as a term of employment.

It’s clear that government agencies aren’t going to get the job done. Anti-vaccine groups already have bullied Gov. Brad Little into prohibiting so-called “vaccine passports,” essentially banning any state executive agency from requiring the vaccine. The city of Nampa caved in to the bullies, too, saying they won’t require employees to get the vaccine. With Nampa city employees on the city’s health insurance plan, taxpayers are on the hook for the consequences of that poor decision.

Employers don’t get to tell their workers that they have to come back to the workplace and then let the anti-vaxxers do as they wish.

Several companies are already mandating that their employees get the vaccine. Locally, Saint Alphonsus, St. Luke’s and Primary Health are requiring vaccines, which makes sense because they’re in the business of actually keeping people healthy. It’s the same reason they mandate the flu vaccine, so their workers don’t contract and spread the flu.

Nationally, more and more non-health-related companies are announcing vaccine requirements: Morgan Stanley, Google, Facebook, Netflix, BlackRock and Saks Fifth Avenue, among others, according to CNN Business.

And why wouldn’t businesses require the vaccine?

Businesses need an open economy, a free flow of commerce. If we have another COVID-19 surge, there goes our economic recovery. Businesses have a vested interest in getting all their employees vaccinated. They need workers to stay healthy and customers to keep buying.

Not to mention, business leaders — just like everyone else — have a moral obligation to keep the public safe.

If employers have an expectation of in-person attendance in the workplace, then they need to make that workplace safe. And workers should put their foot down with their employers: If you’re not requiring the vaccine and no one is wearing a mask, that’s not a safe work environment, and I’m not returning to the office.

Legally allowed

Can private businesses legally require employees to get the vaccine?

Yes, they can.

The Department of Justice last month concluded that federal law does not prohibit public agencies and private businesses from requiring COVID-19 vaccines that are under emergency use authorization.

Similarly, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission at the end of May posted guidance that federal equal employment opportunity laws do not prevent an employer from requiring all employees physically entering the workplace to be vaccinated for COVID-19, as long as employers comply with the reasonable accommodation provisions of the ADA and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and other EEO considerations.

Of course, employers can and should make exceptions for people who legitimately cannot get vaccinated for medical reasons, and for those who cite religious reasons.

Workers still have freedom: You don’t have to get the vaccine. No one’s holding you down and injecting the vaccine into you. You still have the freedom to not get the vaccine, but you also must accept responsibility for the consequences of your poor decision.

You have the freedom to go get another job. You don’t have the freedom to force your employer to keep you on the payroll if you don’t follow the rules, like getting drug-tested. Don’t want to take a drug test? Fine, but you can’t work here. Don’t want to wash your hands? Fine, but you can’t serve food at a diner.

Personally, as a manager, I have sent employees home because they were sick with the flu or strep. Why? Sure, I cared about the health of that employee, but I also cared about the health of my other employees — and I cared about the production of my workplace. If that one employee infected all my other workers with the flu or strep, we wouldn’t be able to put out a newspaper. As a manager, I was well within my rights to send that worker home.

What some seem to miss — repeatedly — is that the personal decision to not get vaccinated and not wear a mask affects the health of others. You’re not in this alone, especially when you are indoors in close quarters with other people.

Even if you want to make the unwise personal decision to not get vaccinated, employers still have the freedom — and the responsibility — to make wise decisions for all of their employees.

In the leadership vacuum left by our elected officials to protect public health and safety, it looks like it’s going to require our business leaders to get things done.

Let the free market handle it. And really, isn’t that The Idaho Way?

Scott McIntosh

Opinion Contributor,

Idaho Statesman

208-377-6202

Scott McIntosh is the Idaho Statesman opinion editor. A graduate of Syracuse University, he joined the Statesman in August 2019. He previously was editor of the Idaho Press and the Argus Observer and was the owner and editor of the Kuna Melba News. He has been honored for his editorials and columns as well as his education, business and local government watchdog reporting by the Idaho Press Club and the National Newspaper Association. Sign up for his weekly newsletter, The Idaho Way. Support my work with a digital subscription