Google is stepping up its COVID-19 vaccine mandates for employees. The tech giant says that employees who are not vaccinated will be put on forced leave, and they will be let go if they don’t follow the COVID-19 rules at the company.
Google also says that the new policy will likely affect employees who fall under the jurisdiction of president Biden’s vaccine mandate. Nonetheless, the mandate is facing a lot of opposition from Congressional Republicans and has also been challenged in courts around the country.
Nonetheless, Google sent a memo to employees spelling out these new terms. Employees have until December to upload a vaccination certificate or explicit exemptions from a medical or religious point of view. If there is any person who fails to do this by January 13th, they will be placed on forced paid leave for 30 days. If indeed they do not comply even after the 30 days, they will face unpaid leave of up to six months.
But even after all that they still don't get the jab, Google will decide to terminate their employment with immediate effect. Despite this, the search engine giant has created a few options for unvaccinated employees who want to stay that way. There are also exceptions under the federal vaccine mandate which could apply to Google employees. The tech giant is ready to listen to such exemptions and deal with them on a case-by-case basis.
At the moment, the policy by the company only requires in-office employees to be fully vaccinated. The company has also made it clear that regular testing is no longer an acceptable alternative. Its vaccinations and vaccinations only that will cut. But employees that don’t work in the office can apply for an exemption if they want.
The emergence of the Omicron variant has been pushing more companies to enact stricter Covid measures. The variant which was first discovered in South Africa has proved more potent than ever before and is spreading quickly. But preliminary data shows that the rate of hospitalizations occasioned by this variant remains very low. Google had planned to bring back in office employees beginning next year. But the uncertainty of Omicron has put everything in jeopardy.
Although the search engine giant has not indicated if it intends to go ahead with the plan, so far there is some concern that if Omicron gets out of hand, then employees will need to work from home. Google is not the only US company dealing with vaccination mandates. This has been a hot-button issue across the US.
While pro-vaccine employers believe that vaccination provides the most realistic protection against COVID, others feel the employees should be allowed to make their own decisions as to whether to get the jab or not. However, it seems like employers do have the leeway here and with the risk of losing their jobs, many employees would rather take the job. After all, a huge percentage of the American population has already been vaccinated.
