Policy Reasons to Require Employee Vaccinations

• According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), health-care professionals and others who work in close contact with populations at higher risk for diseases, such as influenza, may benefit from vaccinations. The CDC provides a list of recommended vaccinations for a variety of diseases, including influenza, hepatitis B and measles. The vaccines may protect workers from diseases transmitted by patients, and protect vulnerable populations from diseases transmitted by workers who otherwise seem healthy. Furthermore, in an emergency situation involving a highly contagious disease, an employer of health-care professionals may need vaccinated employees to treat patients who would otherwise expose the professionals to the disease.
  
  

Mandatory Vaccinations for Civilian Employees

• Employers of health-care workers, medical professionals, nurses and doctors may have policy reasons to justify mandatory-vaccination requirements for their employees. An employer in a nonhealth field, however, may want to require vaccinations simply in an effort to limit sick days or the transmission of contagious diseases among employees. Some employers would like to terminate the employment of workers who don't comply with their vaccination requirements.
  
  No law explicitly prevents an employer from implementing a policy for mandatory vaccines. However, employees who aren't happy about the practice may be able to challenge the policy through legal action or efforts to engage media outlets. Whether employees can successfully challenge mandatory vaccination depends on the specific policy, the circumstances surrounding implementation of the policy and the opinions of the judges overseeing any lawsuits filed by the employees.
  
  

Legal Arguments Against Employer-Mandated Vaccines

• Employees should research their legal rights under state and federal law. When New York health-care professionals faced a mandatory vaccine for the H1N1 virus in 2009, employees filed a lawsuit against the policy. The New York employees argued they shouldn't be required to choose between losing their jobs or getting a vaccine that hadn't undergone enough safety testing. The employees successfully persuaded the state to rescind the vaccination policy through their lawsuit and a media campaign.
  
  Other legal arguments come from areas of law such as contracts. For example, unionized workers may be able to argue that a new requirement to receive vaccines violates their collective-bargaining agreement (CBA) if the original agreement doesn't include health-related provisions such as mandatory vaccines or other preventative measures. In the case of Washington State Nurses Association v. Virginia Mason Hospital, union workers successfully persuaded the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to bar a hospital from implementing vaccine policies not included in the workers’ CBA.
  
  

Exemptions for Religious Beliefs

• According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), some states have enacted laws providing exemptions for employees who oppose vaccination due to their religious or philosophical beliefs. In these states, employers can still implement vaccination policies, but must accept the refusal of workers who qualify for exemptions. As each state sets its own exemption laws, an employee should research the laws of his own state or consult the list of exemptions published by the CDC.
  
  

Vaccinations for Military Service Members

• While civilian employees may be able to challenge a mandatory vaccination policy, some military service members may not have the same option. The U.S. military requires certain vaccines for specific groups of military service members and civilians who spend time in designated areas of the world. For example, the U.S. military requires anthrax vaccinations for personnel with orders to the Korean Peninsula for a period exceeding 15 consecutive days and for service members involved with units engaged in bioterrorism missions.