Professor James Brudney was quoted in Bloomberg Law and shared his expert opinion on employer vaccination programs.
When a Covid-19 vaccine becomes widely available, OSHA could turn to part of a 50-year-old federal law to encourage employers to offer inoculations to workers, attorneys say.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration couldn’t mandate employers provide vaccinations or require workers to accept them, said Charlotte, N.C.-based attorney Travis Vance, a member of Fisher Phillips L.L.P.’s Covid-19 team.
But OSHA could, in theory, use the general duty clause of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 to cite any employer who didn’t offer Covid-19 vaccines, said Vance.
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Attorney Jim Brudney, the Joseph Crowley Chair in Labor and Employment Law at Fordham University in New York City, said employers who start programs soon after a vaccine release may find resistance among their workers who want to first see the vaccine’s safety established.
“This is why you need a safe and vetted vaccine,” Brudney said.