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Happening Today: President Biden To Require Mandatory Vaccinations For Federal Employees & Contractors or Submit to Mandatory Testing

 

Today, President Joe Biden is expected to announce that all federal employees and contractors will be required to get the coronavirus vaccine or alternatively submit to mandatory testing and other mitigation efforts.

Readers might recall that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) had previously stated that employers that require coronavirus vaccinations is a lawful condition of employment.  The EEOC went one step further and stated that an employee could be fired for refusing to get the coronavirus vaccine.  (In fact, we recently saw a case where a judge threw out a lawsuit in which employees sued their former employer after they were terminated for refusing to get the vaccine.  According to the judge in that case, these employees had no actionable cause of action against their former employer.)  Other employers, such as New York City, have recently announced a requirement that all workers for the City be vaccinated as a condition of employment.

The specifics of how this mandatory vaccination for federal employees and contractors will play out is unclear, although President Biden might provide some guidance in his comments today.  Stay tuned.


For additional information:  https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-ask-federal-workers-thursday-get-vaccinated-or-face-testing-source-2021-07-29/https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/27/politics/vaccine-mandate-for-federal-employees-under-consideration/index.html

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