Employers have a clear incentive to want employees vaccinated, to protect clients and co-workers as well as to avoid legal liabilities of potential workplace COVID transmissions.
But can an employer insist on vaccination as a condition of employment?
That’s an ambiguous legal question, as indicated by two recent unfair dismissal cases taken to the federal Fair Work Commission. Both involve employers in 2020 making an influenza vaccination a requirement, and employees losing their jobs for refusing. The bottom line from both cases is that an employer can make vaccination a condition of working – but with significant caveats. It depends on “balancing” the employer’s duty of care to others with the employee’s reason for refusal, and the circumstances of the work they do.
To view the NFPLaw article in full, click here