The headlines scream, "Hospital system employees face firing as vaccine mandate deadlines approach."
More specifically,
"Advocate Aurora Health has fired more than 400 employees who refused to get vaccinated for COVID-19. Other hospitals are threatening to fire employees or approaching deadlines for their own vaccine mandates."
This brings up several points for consideration and discussion.
(1) These job actions are neither a voluntary layoff nor furlough, it is a firing which implies the employee is at fault for violating company policy and committing a firing offense.
(2) At this point in time, there is no federal mandate that requires an employee or contractor to be vaccinated. OSHA has yet to publish a rule in the Federal Register soliciting public comments before rulemaking. There are a number of legal actions awaiting OSHA action so they can be filed in federal court.
(3) As for State mandates, this is an open question due to conflicting scientific studies and the political interference in the public health process.
(4) As for company mandates, the company is totally responsible for the outcome of their actions should their actions result in injury, incapacitation, or death.
(5) The current vaccines are still provided under an emergency use authorization with no data on the long-term effects of vaccine usage. Common sense tells you that, while you can expand research sample populations, there is no corresponding methodology for producing long-term studies.
(6) Only one vaccine is FDA approved and that is subject to terms and conditions. It is not available in the United States. The others are still under emergency use authorizations.
(7) The politics are murky. Those advocating for women's rights claim "my body, my right) yet do not seem to claim the same privilege when it comes to the use of vaccines. The use of vaccines is a matter of "body sovereignty" versus the right of the government to impose mandates, followed by penalties and fines for non-compliance.
(8) It is possible that employees can band together to bring a class-action lawsuit against a company for wrongful termination and seek back pay and other enhancements.
This is not about vaccines, medicine, science, or politics, it is about employment law and the extent to which the government or a private organization can demand you accept medical treatment with known adverse side effects.
Change is coming. There will always be a tomorrow, no matter how much you may try to ignore it. There are no guarantees in life or promises for a bright future. Just because something bad hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it won't. It can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere. No one is guaranteed to wake up tomorrow and still have a job by evening. Are you now wondering, Am I Next?
