Can your employer require you to get the COVID-19 vaccine?

Whether you’re back in the office or still working from home, your employer is probably already talking about the COVID-19 vaccine.

And because of that, Channel 9′s Alexa Lorenzo took a question we’ve been getting a lot to the professionals: “Can my employer require me to get a COVID-19 vaccine?”

Keri Kozlowski is an instructor of law, ethics and tax with the University of Central Florida’s Dixon School of Accounting. Prior to that, she was an employment and public health attorney.

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“What might be best practices and what might be legal don’t always see eye to eye,” she said. “To answer the legal question. Most of the time, yes, if there are an employer that has 15 or more employees, and they can articulate a business reason for needing it, which in a pandemic is not that hard to do.”

So the answer is yes, with an asterisk.

“Most employers, with a few exceptions, can require the vaccine,” Kozlowski said.

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If you are part of a union, the collective bargaining agreement may require negotiating with the union before requiring a vaccine.

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, workers who don’t want to get the shot for medical reasons can request to opt out. And if getting the vaccine is a violation of your religious beliefs, you can request an exemption.

Right now, vaccinations are centered around the elderly at long-term care facilities as well as health care workers.

READ: COVID-19 vaccine: How can you get one once they become available?

Kozlowski said she advises employers to incentivize compliance instead.

Cox Media Group