In December, as the United States was about to begin its massive Covid-19 vaccination campaign, companies and industry groups were busy lobbying federal and state officials for vaccine priority. Employers, such as Amazon and Lyft, and advocacy groups, such as the North American Meat Institute and the National Retail Federation, argued that their employees should be next in line. Vaccination guidelines have varied from state to state, but some have begun to offer shots to general frontline workers, such as store and hospitality staff. This recent expansion has spooked corporate America to announce worker vaccination initiatives.
Under the leadership of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), employers can require employees to receive a Covid-19 vaccination unless they have a disability or religious belief that prevents them from being vaccinated. However, few companies are willing to impose such strict requirements. At a town hall for employees, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said he intended to make the recordings mandatory for employees, but that’s the exception. Other major airlines, including American, Delta and Southwest, have yet to commit to such a decision.
Instead, most employers strongly encourage getting vaccinated on a voluntary basis and are working to launch programs to educate employees about the vaccine, its benefits and its safety. For example, Uber has implemented features in its app that allow drivers in states vaccinating transportation workers to confirm their essential employee status.
Recently, more companies are offering paid incentives: McDonald’s, Trader Joe’s, Starbucks, and Dollar General, to name a few, are giving employees an extra four hours of pay to receive their two doses of vaccine. Supermarket chains Lidl and Kroger are giving $ 200 and $ 100 bonuses to vaccinated workers, respectively; Texas’s largest hospital system, which employs 26,000 people, offers “hope bonuses” of $ 500. Part-time and full-time employees at Target receive $ 15 worth of Lyft ride credit per ride to and from the vaccination site, in addition to an additional four hours’ pay.
These business-driven initiatives are similar to what companies have begun to offer during election years: pay employees to vote or even volunteer at polls. Such measures are likely to generate positive press for employers, but they are also generally beneficial in boosting vaccinations among the public. Still, some large companies, such as Walmart and Amazon, have been discouraged by offering incentives, even though Amazon plans to administer vaccinations locally in certain locations.
The decentralized nature of vaccine rollout has made it challenging to plan ahead, compared to reshuffling employee schedules around a fixed date like election day. Most companies expect employees to schedule and receive the recordings on their own time. In some cases, such as McDonald’s, a company only supervises its own employees or those in restaurants owned by the company, not its franchises. That severely limits the number of workers who could receive vaccine benefits.
“The bottom line is that people have flexible policies to have that time off when they need it or when they have a moderate workload,” Rebecca Reindel, director of safety and health for the AFL-CIO working group, told USA Today.
Employers realize that financial incentives – and even help with vaccination planning – can serve as good motivation. A survey by Blackhawk Network, an incentive solutions company, found that more than two-thirds of 1,000 adult respondents would accept some form of financial compensation to be vaccinated. However, some employment attorneys are reluctant to endorse the practice, as it could be construed as coercive or even discriminatory against those medically incapable of using vaccines. “The law is really restless here. … Even if we have the best of intentions, we have to keep in mind that there are other people whose rights can be caught, ”Valdi Licul, a civil rights attorney and partner at Wigdor LLP, told Bloomberg News.
The question of who should be given vaccine priority in the first place – and whether employers should demand or encourage it – is a complex one. As Emily Stewart previously reported for Recode, Covid-19 poses a significant threat to corporate workforce, but approval of the emergency vaccine can make it difficult for employers to make it mandatory: “Employers have a duty to provide a maintain a safe and healthy workforce, including infection control procedures, but mandating a vaccine entails special obligations in terms of liability. “
Some unions, such as the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, are calling on employers and states not only to prioritize workers in the vaccination process, but also to implement measures such as risk money or additional paid time off. The categorization of which jobs are “essential” or worth prioritizing is of particular concern to self-employed or contract workers, who are not supported by companies. The Los Angeles Times reported that health professionals who are not directly employed by hospitals are advocating to be considered a priority group in California as they still interact with patients. Employees contracted by large companies are also afraid of being left behind in the rollout, despite working in high-risk environments.
Now that the US has bought enough doses to vaccinate all Americans, it remains to be seen how – and if – employers will play a more active role in the distribution of vaccines to workers.