Proposed law would prohibit employers requiring your vaccination

Should your boss be able to tell you to get vaccinated for COVID-19?

The question has sparked a controversy that involves your health, your rights and your employer’s right to control the workplace.

So far in Ohio slightly less than 40 percent of Ohioans have started the vaccination process, so clearly there are a lot of people who are slow to accept the vaccine or want no part of it altogether.

What should happen to those people if their boss mandates vaccination?

Under a bill proposed in the Ohio Senate, SB 169, your employer could ask you to do it but they could not require it.

The bill is sponsored by Sen. Andrew Brenner, R- Delaware, who said he had received calls from constituents who were opposed to forced vaccination.

“This is preservation of liberty as found in the Declaration of Independence,” Brenner said in an interview with WHIO-TV.

Brenner’s bill introduction coincidently came as Montgomery County Prosecutor Mat Heck is requiring his office employees to be fully vaccinated, with a few exceptions.

Brenner said Heck went too far. “In my opinion, he shouldn’t have required that. He should have encouraged people to get the vaccination but then not any further than that,” Brenner said.

Some Democrats have promoted vaccination as a matter of sound public health rather than see it as a personal intrusion.

“Making vaccines accessible to everyone who wants them and to those who are deliberating whether it’s a good decision for them is the first step in ensuring herd immunity and full protection from the coronavirus,” said House Minority Leader Rep. Emilia Sykes, D- Akron.

Brenner’s bill, if passed into law, would likely prevent a hospital or doctor’s office from requiring employees to be fully vaccinated, along with all other kinds of businesses.

Likewise, school districts could not require students to be vaccinated when they qualify for it unless their parents agree to allow their son or daughter to get the shot.

“To me, that’s what is at the core of the bill, defending individual liberty,” Brenner said.

The Senator hopes to get hearings going on the bill next week and perhaps win passage before the House and Senate take their Summer break at the end of June.

Cox Media Group