Why Your Employer Can Deny Your ‘Religious’ Vaccine Exemption

This was just posted, thought it was relevant:

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/religious-based-vaccine-exemptions-a…

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reiterated on Monday that federal law requires employers to consider requests for religious accommodation — but that it does not have to grant those requests if doing so would present an undue hardship.

What evidence is that there granting exemptions would present an undue hardship? The undue hardship clause is not for something you bring on yourself which is what this is. The last 18 months have taught us that unvaccinated people aren’t an undue hardship on business. On the contrary, the undue hardship might well result from refusing to grant them. What might be a mass exodus of workers would stress already thin workforces.

It seems to me that, at some point, common sense and practicality should take precedence over politics. Remember, all these people worked for the last 18 months without being vaccinated, but all of a sudden, it is required or you can’t work? Nothing in actuality changed except the availability of a vaccine. Those who worked long and hard without a vaccine are now being told they can’t work long and hard without a vaccine.

So what’s the real fear?

[Larry]

So what’s the real fear?

From a business perspective? Liability. From a political perspective? Fallout that would hurt your chance of getting re-elected.

What are we looking at in our business when we think of undue hardship? We are looking at what things we need to put in place to accommodate those who do not want to get vaccinated, in order to protect those who may have health conditions that make it a risk to be around an unvaccinated person who may not have antibodies or who are asymptomatic. Regardless of science, it is about perception and liability. So if we have an office that has 2,000 people, and if 5% are resistant to getting a vaccine, that is 100 people. How do we ensure that we are following guidelines to ensure those 100 people are not a risk to the 1,900? Regardless of science, and politics….. we are looking at potential liability problems as well as how do you not discriminate….

From a political perspective? Fallout that would hurt your chance of getting re-elected.

This might sum it up.

What are we looking at in our business when we think of undue hardship?

I think what matters here is what the law says an “undue hardship” is rather than what a business says it is. The EEOC says a hardship defense “requires a showing that the proposed accommodation in a particular case poses a “more than de minimis” cost or burden.” I doubt liability falls into that category, or even uncertainty about getting sick. It would be interesting to see, but that could open the door to all sorts of things.

Regardless of science, it is about perception and liability.

I think this is key. It is about perception. I doubt any employer is seriously worried about it from a medical perspective. I doubt many employees are, particularly at this stage of the game. It is about perception.

[Larry]

What evidence is that there granting exemptions would present an undue hardship? The undue hardship clause is not for something you bring on yourself which is what this is. The last 18 months have taught us that unvaccinated people aren’t an undue hardship on business. On the contrary, the undue hardship might well result from refusing to grant them. What might be a mass exodus of workers would stress already thin workforces.

It seems to me that, at some point, common sense and practicality should take precedence over politics. Remember, all these people worked for the last 18 months without being vaccinated, but all of a sudden, it is required or you can’t work? Nothing in actuality changed except the availability of a vaccine. Those who worked long and hard without a vaccine are now being told they can’t work long and hard without a vaccine.

So what’s the real fear?

I am part of the management team of a small company, and we are in the process of having to work through this. We’ve tried to have a policy of following the CDC’s recommendations and guidelines rather than setting our own, for liability purposes. When it comes to mandating a vaccine, we have tried to avoid that. Right now we are requiring those who are not vaccinated to take a weekly test that we pay for.

However, we are a service company and have about 13 service techs and installers who are traveling to customer sites an a daily basis. We cover a tri-state area serving mostly pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and laboratories. For the last few weeks we’ve been getting 3-4 notices a week from our customers regarding vaccination requirements for techs to be onsite. So far we’ve been able to work around this with our unvaccinated techs by dispatching them to other locations, but we are at the tipping point where it is simply not logistically feasible to reorganize routes this way. We also lose unvaccinated techs to quarantine more frequently since the CDC has more stringent quarantine requirements for unvaccinated. We are short on techs as it is, and it’s very difficult to continue losing them to quarantine. Our revenue goes down and our customers who can’t get timely service are unhappy. We are able to accommodate a religious exemption for all our other positions, but may not be able to do that for service techs as at this rate the logistics and customer requirements will soon be insurmountable.

[Ken S]

We are able to accommodate a religious exemption for all our other positions, but may not be able to do that for service techs as at this rate the logistics and customer requirements will soon be insurmountable.

Larry,

What Ken is facing, as stated above in terms of accommodation is greater than “more than de minimis”. The Supreme Court has held a low threshold for this. What Ken is outlining is what most companies are going through right now. Remain open, but avoid liability.

Ken, That is more than de minimus for sure so no accommodation is required. So what’s the next step?

When your techs quit, you can’t send them out. Then your clients complain. And you say, “We have no techs to send you because you required vaccination. You were entitled to do that, but that means your service request will be scheduled for March of 2022. If you would like an unvaccinated tech, I can have one there in two weeks. What would you like to do?”

It seems like the bigger picture is one of practicality. When you require something people aren’t willing to do, then people quit and you lose your business. This is happening with medical staff, fire, police, teachers, etc.

At some point, it seems like common sense should kick in. Sure, maybe it would be good to be vaccinated, but at what cost? Perhaps the political pressure is so great that common sense is avoided. We talk about hospital and medical staff being overworked. And then institute policies that lower the number of available workers in spite of the fact that the last 18 months have been “the old way.”

[Larry]

Ken, That is more than de minimus for sure so no accommodation is required. So what’s the next step?

When your techs quit, you can’t send them out. Then your clients complain. And you say, “We have no techs to send you because you required vaccination. You were entitled to do that, but that means your service request will be scheduled for March of 2022. If you would like an unvaccinated tech, I can have one there in two weeks. What would you like to do?”

It seems like the bigger picture is one of practicality. When you require something people aren’t willing to do, then people quit and you lose your business. This is happening with medical staff, fire, police, teachers, etc.

At some point, it seems like common sense should kick in. Sure, maybe it would be good to be vaccinated, but at what cost? Perhaps the political pressure is so great that common sense is avoided. We talk about hospital and medical staff being overworked. And then institute policies that lower the number of available workers in spite of the fact that the last 18 months have been “the old way.”

You’re absolutely right about the practical implications. It’s likely before this is over that we will lose some of our techs. We are already feeling the “loss” of the unvaccinated techs because they can’t go to a growing portion of our customers and they can’t be on call. It causes an increased workload to our vaccinated techs, and hopefully we don’t lose some of them to burnout.

On the other hand, I don’t know how this is to be avoided. There is no way a large pharmaceutical company like Merck is going to operate without a vaccination policy. They are all about liability and are going to cover themselves with a pretty stringent policy. In some cases, they are even more strict with their vendors since they don’t legally have to provide a religious/medical exemption for a vendor. They can just find a new vendor. My company actually gets audited by many of our customers, and they can demand that we put policies and procedures in place that they feel we should have. We can refuse and risk losing the customer. So it’s a tough position for my company to be in all the way around.

On the other hand, I don’t know how this is to be avoided. There is no way a large pharmaceutical company like Merck is going to operate without a vaccination policy.

I think there is an easy way for this to be avoided: Do what they did from March of 2020 until Sept of 2021.

Is it more liability? Perhaps but perhaps not. We have already done it and have a proven track record that people and companies who take precautions without vaccinations are very unlikely to spread it. So why isn’t that good enough? Is is not the politics of perception, not reality?

Think about the medical field: These “heroes” worked from March 2020 until Sept 2021 without a vaccination. They showed up every day taking a small risk (and it was small because of the protections they had). Now they are told that they can’t do the very same thing they were asked to do for 18 months. Why? Isn’t it politics? Not D vs. R politics, but as Dave said, the appearance and perception of it.

Think about the employees in this case. They are willing to say, “I am not going to get it. I will find another job.” So you lose them. Was that worth it? Now a company has to find someone else, train them, get them onboarded, and hope they don’t leave you.

What if your company told the client, “We are not requiring vaccinations. We are taking precautions and will continue to service you like we have for the past year and a half.” Yes, your client could go somewhere else and try to start a new business relationship. But maybe the have a hard time finding something. And what if that new company said, “We are not requiring vaccinations. We are taking precuations and will service you just like we have others for the past year and a half.”

What if you put it back on them and said, “How many people at your company got sick from our employees?” It is likely the answer is zero. But people aren’t thinking about that. It is about the politics of perception.

[Larry]

What if you put it back on them and said, “How many people at your company got sick from our employees?” It is likely the answer is zero. But people aren’t thinking about that. It is about the politics of perception.

I don’t think many people are looking at this from the right perspective. First, the true resisters are a small number of people. It is anywhere from 3%-8% of workers who will refuse, under any circumstance to get vaccinated. The vast majority do not have any problems with the vaccine mandate. Second, this is a large machine. Just like Ken said, it isn’t just up to him, but he is a supplier to companies much larger. So even if a company wanted to resist this, they may find out that there is no business left. You as a company can try to resist, but they will just move to another supplier who is willing to take on the business. Third, you can’t just go back to someone like Merck and counter an argument. These decisions are done at the Executive committee level and the Board level. The individual that you would be interfacing with, is some employee in procurement, who is about 15 levels below the CEO and just needs to follow the mandate.

Some companies will loose people. No one wants to loose 3% to 5% of a certain employee pool, but in the end it is manageable, and if you don’t find another way, someone else will take your business. The problem is that you have a small minority of resisters to the vaccine who are trying to argue various reasons why getting a vaccine is not the best solution, and to be honest, that ship has sailed. The big companies don’t really care about the reason. They find the liability to get the vaccine significantly less than not getting the vaccine. Now that they are moving forward, all of the smaller companies will increasingly feel the pressure to get onboard or potentially loose business, or worse be forced to close.

Larry, one thing to note here is that a large number of medical staff did indeed get vaccinated not in September, but rather around January—including my daughter and her husband—and around the same time, COVID infection and death rates plunged super strongly, much more strongly and deeply than the current decline.

Now of course, post hoc non est propter hoc (afterwards is not because) and all that, but we might wonder whether a key transmission channel was indeed the medical establishment, and whether the virus at the time was especially stopped.

Now? Well, the Lancet just published a study that showed 38% of unvaccinated people exposed to “Delta” got it, and 25% of vaccinated. I’m not sure which vaccination, how much other “jabs” help vs. Delta, and all that, but the long and short of it is that “breakthrough” infections seem to be gaining steam. My last look at NBC’s # of cases suggests another wave of infections is coming as well.

We might suggest a dose of humility on the part of public health authorities regarding vaccine mandates might be in order. Reality is that for the past half century, apart from tetanus boosters and flu shots, adults have not been used to getting jabs, let alone mandatory ones, and a sane public health response ought to acknowledge that—that adults are going to need to be persuaded, not bullied, into getting the jabs.

It’s also going to require that public health authorities admit their mistakes and even (again, Fauci on face masks) flat out lies. I don’t think that many people are troubled by the fact that people make mistakes, but they do get really resistant when there are obvious screw-ups (again, COVID patients to nursing homes? Really?) without any apology or repentance. Psychologically, if you have huge screw-ups without repentance, people start thinking “huh, maybe those conspiracy theorists have a point after all….”

I’m not among the conspiratorialists, and just today I rebuked a friend from church for sending “bovine scat” (to put it very politely) around on Facebook, but at a certain point, the public health establishment needs to understand that the public hears from them a LOT, from their doctors a LITTLE, and hence if there’s someone to blame for the public not being persuaded, there you go.

I don’t think many people are looking at this from the right perspective.

True. But how so? Perhaps the Freakonomics view—the counterintuitive one is the correct one. Or perhaps the view that we were told all along. And again, I am generally in favor of the vaccine. What I am opposed to, generally speaking, is the mandate.

First, the true resisters are a small number of people. It is anywhere from 3%-8% of workers who will refuse, under any circumstance to get vaccinated.

We were told that “herd immunity” is 70% or so (don’t remember the exact number). Whatever the case, if only 3-8% is refusing, we are well north of 90%. Again, it seems to be a case of the government changing its position midstream.

Second, this is a large machine. Just like Ken said, it isn’t just up to him, but he is a supplier to companies much larger. So even if a company wanted to resist this, they may find out that there is no business left. You as a company can try to resist, but they will just move to another supplier who is willing to take on the business.

If there is another company who can take the business. What happens when there isn’t one? What happens when you can’t staff an ER? Or an OR? Or a school? It’s one thing if your widget making machine goes down and you can’t make widgets for a while. It’s another thing when people’s lives are threatened because you instituted a mandate that left certain positions unfilled.

Furthemore, if 90% of the workforce is vaccinated, this really isn’t a problem anyway. Remember, we have 18 months of history and knowledge and the sky didn’t fall.

Third, you can’t just go back to someone like Merck and counter an argument. These decisions are done at the Executive committee level and the Board level. The individual that you would be interfacing with, is some employee in procurement, who is about 15 levels below the CEO and just needs to follow the mandate.

But when that procurement individual passes it up on the chain that he or she can’t procure anything, it will get attention at some level. Or when the new supplier says, “I can have someone there in March to fix it,” it will get somebody’s attention.

Now that they are moving forward, all of the smaller companies will increasingly feel the pressure to get onboard or potentially loose business, or worse be forced to close.

I think this might be the most frightening thing of all that comes out of this.

Larry, one thing to note here is that a large number of medical staff did indeed get vaccinated not in September, but rather around January—including my daughter and her husband—and around the same time, COVID infection and death rates plunged super strongly, much more strongly and deeply than the current decline.

True on the vaccines, but all the way back last summer (prior to the vaccine) we were told what would happen over the winter and it happened.

Now of course, post hoc non est propter hoc (afterwards is not because) and all that, but we might wonder whether a key transmission channel was indeed the medical establishment, and whether the virus at the time was especially stopped.

I have never seen any such suggestion so wondering seems quite futile. My guess is that someone wondered and found out that it wasn’t the case. Surely if some significant level of transmission was coming from the medical establishment, we would have known about it.

Of course, I think it is almost universally agreed, or at least widely agreed, that the shut-downs did very little. Can’t unring that bell now, unfortunately.

You are correct that persuasion will work far better than force.

….no doubt, but if I see the steepest decline in infections and death seen yet in this epidemic when group A is vaccinated, I’m going to wonder whether Group A is the group that was the most likely to transmit the disease.

Can you prove it either way? Not given the wide range of likelihoods in predicting the course of the disease, but I would dare say that in light of many hospitals’ claims “oh, we’ve never had it proven that a case originated here,” the steep decline in cases and deaths after their employees were (mostly) vaccinated ought to induce a little bit of humility. it’s not for no reason, after all, that it’s said that the best place to catch many infectious diseases is….in the hospital.