Context: many companies are coming out saying that they are going to "require" vaccines. A couple weeks ago we had some exec spend 5 minutes during a company-wide meeting talk about how we all needed to be vaccinated and the company was going to take a hard-line stance of "vaccine or mask" and require proof of vaccination in the former case.
Well today they officially rolled out the policy: employees will be given the option to "self-attest" that they have been vaccinated using the online HR platform. The tool asks which vaccine you've taken and the date you took each course. No batch/lot number, no location, nothing that could actually be used to authenticate the information provided; and no verification will be performed.
I bring this up because companies like to talk a big game, but their bark is often bigger than their bite; and what they actually do frequently ends up being underwhelming. So I'm curious for others who work places that will require vaccinations what your policies actually are (as opposed to what the Press Release says they are). Has your employer actually implemented any policies, or are they still in the "put out a Press Release" stage?
Obviously don't provide any information that could be used to dox you.
I don't plan on self-attesting myself, for this exact reason. However I am also in a position where I can tell HR to fuck itself and it not be a big deal. And I acknowledge that not everyone is able to do so. A sad realization I've come to over the past 18 months is "if you're waiting for the average person to grow a spine about this stuff, you're going to be waiting a very long time"
For those who aren't able to do so, having the HR system contain so much inaccurate data that it's useless and they're unable to discipline everyone who provided inaccurate data is another valid form of attack.
This is an important point. I made the personal decision with my doctor's input, plus a lot of research, and a wait and see approach, to finally get vaccinated. I'm borderline age wise when it comes to Covid, and I generally get all kinds of vaccines, and trust my doctor.
But that's between me and my doctor, no one has any right to ask, judge or force me to do anything in this regard. And if I believe the vaccine would work, why the hell would I even care if people around me are vaccinated or not?
That's one way of seeing it. I don't like that this is setting a precedent.
Another way of seeing it is this is the company's way of saying "we're giving everyone an out so we don't have to keep doing all this silly stuff; for god's sake take the out."
Another way is "this is all our lawyers will let us do without risking major lawsuits".
Yes I work for a giant public corporation. I trust them to do nothing but listen to their lawyers, and their lawyers are probably telling them that storing that sort of medical information on all their employees is a legal minefield.
Yeah, they make this a thing that people do as a matter of course, then they say, "hey, it's really annoying how people always have to fill this thing out, every few months when they get their
software updatebooster shot. Let's make a national registry so we can just update automatically."My company is not making any concrete statements one way or the other. It has decreed that it will follow every governmental and pseudo-governmental order, but beyond that, it is in the business of making money, not of policing its own employees. If you're sick, don't show up... But you still only get two sick days (unpaid) per year.
We don't have one where I work cause nobody gives a shit
I wouldn't say anything first. Gain some time to analyze the situation. Claim that the status of vaccination is a personal sensibly information and no one has anything to do with it.
My plan is to do nothing. Frankly if someone didn't "self-attest" most people would just assume they did. The only people who wouldn't know would be HR, and I've never seen anything to suggest that HR has particularly good memory.
My employers policies were very recently (although I’m told is in the midst of changing because of “Delta”) the following...
However I refuse to play their game so I didn’t self report that I was vaccinated, and i won’t. Additionally if they require I come back to the office I’m just gonna go and work where I want. If they begin asking questions about vaccinations or asking why I’m not masking I’m just gonna say “I only take medical advice from medical professionals who have examined me in a medical setting and who are qualified and ethically capable of providing such medical advice.” If they push back I will just go to my desk and work until they physical throw me out of the building at which point I will claim unemployment.
There isn't one, and as someone who has left jobs over having to work closely with a woman, I'll just let them fire me if they did.
Mine actually required you to upload a pic of your card as pat of the attestation (or say you haven't had it/decline to share.) I say 'required' not because I've quit/been fired, but because I ignored the requirement as I didn't like the terms they made you agree to for the attestation, and eventually they dropped the requirement to attest and just assumed I'm not vaccinated.
They also recently changed policies on masks to requiring them for all employees in shared areas, and unvaxxed employees have to wear them all the time. Fortunately it appears that continuing to work from home is still a viable option so I'll be doing that until I'm able to find something somewhere without openly hostile policies.
Mine hasn’t as of now but an adjacent dept has been by decree. I’m just waiting my time to see if we’re next but unvaxxed are supposed to mask up although vaxxed people are wearing them & no assumptions are to be made about assuming what their status is...
My job is putting in a vaccine mandate just now. All employees must get the jab, and anybody new coming in must show proof of vaccination as a condition to be hired. Come tomorrow, I'll have to go meet with one of the management staff and sign a document acknowledging that I am aware of this policy (which to my mind sounds like another layer of legal protection against wrongful termination lawsuits, on top of the EEOC's okay-ing of vaccine mandates.)
The new policy is coming into place next month.... I've already told my manager, he has that long to find a replacement for me to train up, because I'm not getting the jab.
I work in a retirement home, but I hear that this kind of policy is going up pretty much all over health care jobs. There's a supposed shortage of qualified nurses right now, but that's utter bullshit... There are plenty of nurses out there. There just aren't all that many who are willing to capitulate to mandated vaccination (and the utter bullshit conditions being put on health workers right now)
The place I work at is gonna lose about a third of its staff to this mandate, because a lot of us there are refusing to capitulate.
What happens if you don't sign that document? Why comply with any aspect of the policy, including the part where you have to formally state you're aware it exists?
My employer is going through a similar (though for a different reason) realization that it isn't invulnerable since a lot of very experienced people are leaving all at the same time, and you can tell by management very obviously and loudly saying how everything's going to be fine that they're in a terrible panic about it.
My best guess is, if I don't sign the document, I get kicked out then and there instead of in a month when they begin actually enforcing the policy, so I don't get a month of safety to find myself a new job. Not a huge deal. I'll be picking the thing through looking for any hidden nastiness and if it's anything beyond what I've been told it is, I'll walk then and there no problem.
This whole thing is a panic. People are scared of The Variants and all the propaganda, and they're letting bad actors trample all over them and their rights in the name of making the Scary Thing go away. It's pretty similar to 9/11 and the PATRIOT act, and the ridiculous security theater airlines go through to this day. It's horrifyingly invasive, woefully ineffective, but it makes people feel safe, and we all know how important those precious feelies are...
Can you play the "I'm not signing anything without my lawyer reading it first" card on the acknowledgment document to buy a bit of extra time? Sounds like simply being able to delay into the next pay period so you get an extra paycheck would be a positive.
eh, I get paid bi-weekly and last week was payday. Doubt I could hold off on it that long, specially not for a lawyer I'd probably spend most of that paycheck on
No one's going to check that you actually had a lawyer review it: simply a stalling tactic.