Carrying a firearm is a constitutional protected right, but very few people think it’s a ban idea to not allow employees to open carry weapons at work.
How then, can giving people the option to mask up or get vaccinated a controversial issue? It feels politically manufactured to me.
We are letting people make the poor choice to not get vaccinated. They just have to wear a mask as a consequence of that choice.
I think that’s a great example of how the line will vary a lot by state. I bet many in TX would feel not being allowed to carry a gun at work is an infringement of their Constitutional rights, and many in TX (and on the SCOTUS) would agree with them. Honestly fair enough, Federalism at its best.
I’m trying to think if there’s some disability that would disallow vaccinations and might cause ADA accommodation issues - there probably is… Allergies are the best thing I can think of, there are probably some fringe ones that could cause issues. Or maybe pregnancy, but I think the vaccine’s been cleared for pregnant people now (very unsure on that.) Otherwise I can’t think of an issue with logging vaccination status.
I’m 100% confident that if people are unable to vaccinated for valid reasons they wouldn’t have to get the vaccine. That’s why its so important for other people to get the vaccine in the first place. People who can’t take vaccines should still get to experience a safe workplace.
so your argument is that this should not even be an argument.
I think we reached old AO political levels here finally. Time for me to step aside on this one.
I’m really surprised this is an argument.
I needed to get my vaccines to go to school and I don’t remember anyone making a big deal about it. Why would work be this massively different thing?
Does your company hire a third party to hold this information and they simply tell your employer J0EBL0W needs vaccine A and B, or does HR hold all of that information?
My employer does this all internally.
because people are getting progressively dumber
Because, some of us have rather strong opinions when it comes to maintaining a firewall between “work life” and “private life”. Health decisions should be “private” by default, at least until/unless they reach a threshold of putting “work” at risk.
When it comes to vaccines, opinions may vary as to whether they cross that line. If my opinion and my employer’s opinion differ too greatly, that might be a reason I might seek other employment (or early retirement).
If many employees’ opinions differ too greatly from the employer’s…the employer might wish to modify their opinion.
I mention all of the above in abstract. I’m undecided as to how I would feel if my employer required maintaining a COVID vaccination. In one sense it’s moot – I assume I will return to having to cross an international border regularly for my current job, and will need to show proof of vaccination to prove that. But, if we were talking about a flu vaccine or if I didn’t have the travel aspect…I think I might object to that on principle, even though I’m not an anti-vaxxer.
Does this not apply to school? Shouldn’t there be a firewall between school life and private life? If anything I would think that firewall should be stronger than the one between work and private life since students have to go to school and (private schools aside) have little choice in which schools they go to.
My employer is already stepping on my health privacy by requiring me to submit to a pre-employment drug screening. Is that also a violation of my private life?
It just seems strange to me that people are up in arms about work mandated vaccines but have no issues at all with the other things I mentioned.
Then for the last part of your quoted post. Doesn’t being unvaccinated put work at risk? If large enough portions of the population are unvaccinated it could result in flu outbreaks that take out dozens or hundreds of employees at one time. That could be fairly problematic for a workplace. Not even considering my aforementioned desire for workplaces to be “safe”.
Yes, I think that DOES violate my private life. I don’t happen to indulge in illegal recreational drugs. I barely drink. My recreational drug of choice is caffeine. But the one time I was required to submit a drug test I really bristled at the invasion of my privacy and bodily autonomy, and I considered not taking the job.
I’m much less bothered by a vaccine requirement (which no employer has ever imposed, fwiw) because I can see how that could impact the workplace in a way that was too late to do anything about by the time it was noticed. Honestly, as an actuary, if my illegal (or legal, for that matter) drug use is affecting my work product, my supervisor ought to be able to tell from the work product before I do any damage. But if I show up at the office with measles, and some of my co-workers are immune compromised and so can’t be effectively vaccinated, I’ve just killed those co-workers.
and to me, I didn’t think twice. You don’t like it, take another job.
To go to primary school I had to show my vaccination record,
to go to college I had to be tested for STDs.
On the scale of things asking for people to either be vaccinated to work remote is actually less invasive to my privacy.
Every job I’ve ever had has required a drug test. I find it to be a violation of my private life that’s even more extreme than requiring a vaccine (since I can just wear a mask instead). So I agree with you on that.
My point is why are people super cool with one, but act like the other is some extremely controversial issue. It seems like a complete lack of consistency. Instead people like @LuckyHat are acting like I’m acting like a rogue political extremist.
Well, as I mentioned somewhere, my actuarial employer has announced they won’t require covid vaccination. But my extremely part time employer, for whom I hope to work 40 hours (total) next year, has requested I give them detailed info on my vaccination status (dates and lot numbers, and a photo of the card) and says they want the information to review when they decide whether they will require vaccination next year. I was happy to comply.
And we’re getting into the grey area where my libertarianism is challenged. 
In an ideal world, work or school vaccination mandates should be unnecessary because folks who can get vaccinated without ill effects would do so for those illnesses that can be passed by virtue of being in close contact with others.
I might draw a distinction between “work” and “school” because school is generally compulsory. Children who cannot safely be vaccinated are still obliged to go to school / governments are generally obliged to provide education for such children, and therefore there is some room to require that children who can be vaccinated are. Add in children being somewhat more susceptible to certain preventable-with-vaccine illnesses, and the propensity for children to not abide by hygenic rules on their own…
(Yes, I know that home schooling is an option for those who might object to vaccination or who might have medical reasons for not being vaccinated…and that does muck up the picture a bit.)
However, with work…I can’t say that I object to a “normal employer” requiring vaccinations, under a “their premises, their rules” doctrine. (“Normal employer” = I’m ignoring medical care providers, etc. where there may be stronger reasons to require vaccinations.) I’m just saying that I can see where someone might reconsider seeking employment with an employer with such a policy because of the intrusiveness.
I will observe that I have in my career turned down two offers of employment because of a pre-employment drug screen requirement. I have no concerns about being able to pass such a test, but barring extenuating circumstances like a requirement to operate heavy machinery or government decree…the contents of my urine is none of their damned business, and there are other employers that have no such requirement.
(I have and do work for companies that reserve the right for a drug screen, and presumably would require one if there was cause for concern, or there were other valid considerations…but so far they haven’t, and that’s OK.)
Like I tried to say…I’m on the fence there. I think it is entirely appropriate for an employer to hold vaccination clinics for their employees and to apply peer pressure. I concur with the risk to the workforce/workplace if there were a local breakout of certain diseases. But, in years past I had a few years where I had nasty reactions to flu shots which, for a while, led me to decide that the risk of the flu was preferable to the guarantee of several days of nastiness…and that’s not something I really would have wanted to go into detail with either my manager or HR. (Things have changed since then, FWIW.)
I can say that, since I was pretty much full-time WFH and will remain so even after our offices reopen, that if my employer imposed an absolute requirement for a flu vaccine, I would deem that as too intrusive (since I’m not normally posing a risk of contagion to other employees), and a reason to start looking for other opportunities. But I am less bothered by they hypothetical of “you can WFH or RTO, but if you come back to the office, you have to either wear a mask or prove you’re vaccinated” (although I’d still prefer a blanket “we’re wearing masks in the office until we’re certain COVID is contained enough to limit risk of further outbreaks”).
I don’t know whether younger me would have been offended by such a requirement (and sought admission elsewhere)…or enthused that casual s*x was apparently so common as to necessitate such a requirement.
(Who am I kidding. Younger me was a teenaged male…)
Pretty sure it applied to every state school in the state
I agree. However, the real work shows how this isn’t even remotely true. It’s the same reason why libertarianism doesnt work in general. 
I see this the opposite of you. For students there is little other choice besides being forced to submit to government mandates. For employees they have 2 alternative options, wearing a mask or finding alternative work.
In both situations vaccines are to protect the health and safety of the people around them but in the case of students they have almost no alternatives.
Is this really the case? Are there than many vaccine preventable diseases that are worse for children to contract?
I agree with this, but I’ve never been offered a job that wasn’t contingent on a drug screening. Am I just applying at weird places? Is it because I live in a deep red state?
Why? Shouldn’t we follow the science and let people who are safe avoid completely unnecessary uncomfortable restrictions?
Looks like there is one screening that I managed to avoid. ha
I think of it this way: Ignoring alternatives like home-schooling, due to its compulsory nature, there are limited ways a person can exercise their own risk preferences when it comes to school. Therefore the more conservative stance of generally requiring vaccinations makes some sense to me, despite the appearance of an imposition on personal liberty, due to the above-mentioned tendency of people to not voluntarily make sensible choices.
When it comes to work, I have no objection to normal employers (again, ignoring special cases for simplicity) requiring vaccinations on a “our premises, our rules basis”, but I similarly have no objection to folks choosing to seek employment elsewhere if they find such a stance too intrusive. I would probably be one of those, not because of vaccine skepticism, but because the stance would probably be one sign that I would be uncomfortable in that employer’s culture…especially if they were to require me, a WFH employee, to be vaccinated despite my posing negligible risk to other employees. Someplace that promotes vaccination by hosting clinics and applying peer pressure, but doesn’t quite go to an actual mandate is more likely to be someplace I’d fit in.
For somewhat similar lines of logic, I also have no objection to other folks choosing to work / to not work for such employers based on their own risk tolerances.
In other words, my reactions are driven by whether requirements make sense, and the availability of options.
I could just have been lucky, and I’ve worked (and looked for work) in both red and blue states. And I have encountered the requirement before…but since other options are available, I’ve been comfortable refusing such blanket requirements.
(Or has something changed in the roughly 20 years since I last looked to change employers?)
My philosophies may be grounded in libertarianism, but they are covered in pragmatism.