Can My Employer Require Me To Get the COVID-19 Vaccine?
Since governments aren't likely to actually mandate the vaccine (more commentary on that issue forthcoming), the next question is whether or not someone might be required to get the vaccine in order to go to work. As a preliminary note, I'm not talking about unionized workplaces; different considerations will apply there. This discussion centers on non-unionized workplaces. There are a range of considerations to look at - the impact of various statutory regimes, context-dependent factors, etc. - but the biggest and most difficult question here will be the 'general' case: In a workplace with no exceptional or extraordinary relevant considerations, is it within the employer's contractual rights to require employees to vaccinate? I'll come to that last. The Easier Question: What If I Can't Vaccinate? There are already cases of people experiencing allergic reactions to the Pfizer vaccine, and so the emerging recommendation is that people with histories of drug