Lawyers help employers navigate vaccine mandates in S.C.

The Food and Drug Administration's approval for the Pfizer vaccine has removed a major legal hurdle for companies looking to mandate COVID-19 immunizations as a condition of employment.

Until Aug. 23, the Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines were only approved for emergency use authorization, giving further reason for people to stronghold their opposition, said David Dubberly, an employment and labor law group leader at Nexsen Pruet.

In the near future, Dubberly expects more businesses to create mandate policies, especially as Moderna is on its way to approval as well. Dubberly, along with S.C. Chamber of CommercePresident Bob Morgan and other top labor lawyers in the state, came together on Aug. 26 to advise employers on what to expect should they mandate COVID-19 inoculations and how to respond or not respond.

For now, companies such asNephron Pharmaceuticals Corp. and S.C. hospital systems including Medical University of South Carolina, Tidelands Health, Roper St. Francis and East Cooper Health have all mandated that employees get vaccinated.

The city of Columbia mandated vaccines for employees on Sept. 7, two days before President Joe Biden announced sweeping vaccine mandates for federal employees and businesses with 100 or more employees.

More than 150 other health care systems around the U.S., as well as AT&T, Google, Bank of America and more, also have similar directives.

Mike Carrouth, a lawyer at Fisher Phillips LLP in Columbia, said employers should prepare for medical and religious exemption requests, protests and, most severely, people withholding labor.

Employers could potentially lose between 10% and 20% of their workforce, with people who feel strongly about the vaccine leaving a company or going to work for a competitor.

Carrouth counseled employers to be careful, remain calm and not fire someone simply because they don't agree with their beliefs, given potential issues under the National Labor Relations Act and the National Labor Relations Board's protected concerted activity guidelines.

"You can't consider the employees' actions to be inappropriate or insubordinate or in violation of a policy simply because you question the reasonableness of their opposition," Carrouth said.

If an employee opposes a vaccine mandate, they have the right to leave.

"If they're not going to continue working in those conditions, that's their choice. That's what the law allows them to do," Carrouth said. "However, the law does not...