As the delta variant of covid-19 advances in the world, especially in the United States, the discussion is also growing about the obligation that some companies are imposing on their employees regarding vaccination.
Companies like Alphabet, Walmart and Facebook, for example, have already confirmed that they will not allow unvaccinated employees to work in person and, in some cases, have said that if they decide not to get vaccinated and do home office, they will reduce their salary.
Other firms, like CNN, for example, went further and fired three workers after it was discovered that they attended the offices without being vaccinated with any of the authorized drugs: Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca, for example.
In this context, a problem is emerging in the company-employee relationship: the religion.
Is that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) of the United States outlined exceptions that employers must meet for personnel who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons or for those who refuse to be vaccinated due to “religious beliefs”.
For HR specialists in large companies, this is a very sensitive issue for both parties.
Religion, widely considered for decades for hiring, has long since been a point of discussion. However, with the vaccination process halfway through and COVID-19 cases on the rise, the scene is tense.
There is no express or clear policy in this regard, both in the United States and in most of the world.
The availability of coronavirus vaccines in the US caused infections to drop markedly in the first half of 2021, but driven by the delta variant, the seven-day average of new daily cases has risen 33 percent.
EEOC defines religion broadly to include moral and ethical beliefs and may even include opposition to receiving injections of certain chemicals, publishes Reuters.
The subject is open and will surely be discussed for months within the human resources departments of the companies.
It is that as an employer, it is difficult to ask if an employee has a religious belief that prevents him from getting a vaccine. Also, it is difficult to tell if the employee is sincere or is simply lying.
Experts say employers must be careful not to appear to be invading workers’ privacy or harassing them and companies should be aware that employees’ religious views can change over time.
Background in companies
There are antecedents in this matter in the United States.
In 1990, Alina Glukhovsky was fired from a company in Chicago because she refused to work on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.
He sued and at trial said that before (in 1982, when he started working) he was not particularly religious, but his beliefs changed after the death of his father and the birth of a son. Justice ruled in his favor.