"Employers are allowed to mandate the vaccine," employment and labor law attorney Jim Brown said. But there are certain factors that are taken into consideration.
[Ads /]
Brown says vaccines need to be made readily available for the entire workforce. The employer is also required to "take into account any serious health condition or medical reasons that a worker may suffer from that would prevent them from having the vaccine," Brown said. Essentially, the worker's religious beliefs are also accounted for, where someone doesn't want to take the vaccine due to religious reasons.
As for returning to the office, Brown says it gets a little tricky.
"If you have the workforce, very concerned about returning to work, you'd have issues with childcare that didn't exist before COVID. You have issues with transportation to the office, that didn't exist before COVID. Those are realities that the employer is going to have to take into consideration. We are seeing a lot of employers were doing surveys to identify a fear factor about returning to the practicalities such as childcare, transportation to the office," Brown said.
RELATED: Majority of workers want mandatory employee vaccinations, hybrid work model
The next big question is whether employers would pay workers for taking time off due to reaction to the vaccine, or for the vaccine appointments itself.
"Certainly. In either instance, there are six particular obligations that an employer has to comply with that help protect the worker," Brown said. Workers can receive paid sick leave for taking time off to self-quarantine or self-isolate, to recover from symptoms, get the vaccine, or deal with side effects after receiving a shot, signed by Governor Newsom in March.
Watch the full interview in the video player above.
VACCINE TRACKER: How California is doing, when you can get a coronavirus vaccine
[Ads /]
Having trouble loading the tracker above? Click here to open it in a new window.
RELATED STORIES & VIDEOS:
- Cheat sheet: What you can and can't do after being fully vaccinated
- CA COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker: See your status here
- These CA counties are way ahead in vaccinations
- How to register for a COVID-19 vaccine in every Bay Area county
- AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson: Breaking down the differences between coronavirus vaccines
- 10 Bay Area ZIP codes prioritized for COVID-19 vaccine
[Ads /]