Member-only story
Vaccinate Workers at (Almost) Any Price
Corporate America sabotaged paid vaccination leave
I admit it. I look at the overloaded hospitals, read the testimony of overworked health care workers, see the spiking case- and death-counts, and I find myself angry at people who won’t get vaccinated.
It’s hard not to be angry, especially when you see people who reject the assurances about vaccine safety but conduct uncontrolled experiments on themselves using livestock medicine, based on conspiratorial social media threads.
https://www.dailyposter.com/the-corporate-deterrent-to-more-vaccinations/
But vaccine refusal, hesitancy and denial are complex. Among the unvaccinated people are sizeable group of low-waged workers in precarious jobs, and research tells us their unvaccinated status is due to the inability to take time off for vaccination.
If you have to travel a long way to get vaccinated, or if you fear that side effects might affect your ability to work for a day or two, then the speculative benefits of vaccination are trumped by the real-world consequences of losing pay or getting fired.
Half of the employers in America will not give their workers paid leave to get vaccinated or recover from side effects.
https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/poll-finding/kff-covid-19-vaccine-monitor-june-2021
20% of unvaccinated people would get a shot if they got paid leave.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/08/16/paid-leave-covid-vaccine/
The original covid relief bill included paid sick leave for people with covid. That benefit expired last December, and Democrats failed to renew it after taking the presidency, the House and the Senate.
The Biden admin floated a Dept of Labor rule that would mandate paid vaccination leave. Intense lobbying from Associated General Contractors, the National Federation of Independent Businesses and the National Association of Manufacturers killed the proposal.
