Wisconsin bill would eliminate workplace flu-shot requirement (Page 2)

But I have an issue with that. Requiring an employee in your service to get a flu shot is not "taking away" their rights. From what I understand, not every healthcare organization requires them. If you don't want to take the shot.. then you need to go work somewhere else. You have the freedom to chose where you work.

I am a teacher. If I post something questionable on FB I can get fired. And there is nothing I can do about it. Is that fair? Anyway, if I choose that profession, I choose the professional requirements of my employer. Otherwise, I go into a different profession or get a job with a different employer.

So you're equating posting on FB with injecting a virus, killed or not, into your body?

Just making sure I'm hearing this right.

What I am saying is that an employee has choices. You are aware that only a quarter of all hospitals require a flu shot..

As I said, I'm torn as to whether a requirement to inject a live or "dead" virus into your body should be able to be a mandate.

And yes, that's how the vaccine works. the polio one works that way too.. and so does small pox. Thank God for them.

Penicillin is mold. When you take antibiotics, you inject a type of fungus into your body. And it can save your life.

I'm waiting to see where any of those are a condition of employment. That would be the only reason you would bring them up in this thread, right?

For the purpose of this thread, I honestly don't care what an antibiotic is or how it works as it's not a condition of employment anywhere I'm aware of.

Now, requiring immunizations, on the other hand, are and there is a bill going forward that may very well outlaw that practice and I'm thinking since there are so many ways to avoid it already perhaps this bill might be a good thing to pass so one doesn't have to justify a personal decision and reveal religious convictions to an employer. Come to think of it, the EEOC would have issues with questions about religion by an employer anyway so perhaps this is even more necessary to not allow.

That might have saved about 30 of us from living with typhoid when we found out the "dead" stuff wasn't when we got immunization.

Well, I brought that up because of your comment:

"So you're equating posting on FB with injecting a virus, killed or not, into your body?"

What did you mean by that? It gave me the impression that you were trying to over dramatize the negatives of the vaccination,

Again, my main point is that if one is concerned so strongly about an employer requirement than that person should take that into consideration when applying for that position.

I feel that a law like that might be unfair to an employer. They should be able to, within reason, set their own guidelines for employment.

The polio vaccine is a condition of employment with the military. Along with the flu shot, MMR, and Td. And depending on what country you're getting sent off to, there's a whole lot more they can stick in you.

Will this bill allow anyone stationed at Fort McCoy to refuse their annual flu shot?

I mean exactly that, "So you're equating posting on FB with injecting a virus, killed or not, into your body?"

That's an honest question. Posting on Facebook cannot, in any way, shape or form, alter your body, interfere with your health or cause you missed time if everything does not go exactly right. I'm failing to see how that can possibly be compared to allowing someone to inject you with a virus. I'm also failing to see where I'm dramatizing anything, I'm talking about injecting a virus into your body, much like the bill is, and you're talking about online social pages, which has nothing to do with the bill.

Yes, penicillium is a mold, penicillin is not. Penicillin is made by fermentation of that mold. I still have never read where any employer made a condition of employment taking either of those, so that has not one whit of relevance to this thread. I'm not seeing small pox or polio in this bill either so they're irrelevant as well. Throwing them in to confuse the issue?

From the article, the bill is to make it so a requirement for a flu shot cannot be used as a condition of employment. There's nothing in it about FaceBook, penicillin, small pox, or polio at all.

You might want to check with HR but it seems to me the military is not covered by just about any state laws.

For a hospital worker? Absolutely, IMO. Even if the vaccine is not 100% effective, you are building "herd immunity". Your job is putting you in contact with sick / injured people who are far more vulnerable to infection than you are. Part of that job should be preventing the spread of disease, including your own vaccinations.

What about airline pilots / flight attendants? They have to go through security screening EVERY FLIGHT. Should we stop mandating this because they have a scan going through their bodies? The backscatter machines were arguably worse for you than a vaccine.

Yeah I understand most backscatter machines have been removed and they could opt for a patdown (I'm sure some would find that intrusive too, though). But the point is that many jobs have an expectation that you must do certain things to protect the people you are serving. As long as those requirements are spelled out in advance, so you know what you're getting into, I think that's acceptable.

there is a vaccine that is now required for most students living in college dorms - that wasn't in place even in 2000 when i started school. (i am guessing that it's meningitis but do not remember specifics right now)

for the same reason...many folks, close quarters, enough people died to warrant a response. are these students having their rights taken away from them too!!!!

As someone who works in health care I resent someone requiring me to get it. When the H1N2 vaccine came out I got it. We know what causes it and this prevents it. No brainer. The general flu shot is at best a guess of what they think will cause the flu that year ergo the effectiveness rate. I was an employee of a hospital that required we get the shot (and when I signed on it was NOT a requirement and by the time it became a requirement I was in a 2 year contract) OR you could wear a mask at all times during work (If you had an excuse) OR you could be fired. The really stupid thing to me is that they required hospital employed physicians to get the stupid shot (and the marked your ID tag too so stupid and I refused to wear the dumb sticker) BUT they did not require non hospital employed physicians to get it...because they can't NOR can they say OK you can't visit your loved ones in the hospital without a flu shot so there are a LOT of people running around in the building without that so called protection

When I had my own practice I offered it to my employees free of charge but did not get it myself. I do NOT think it should be mandated for health care workers or anyone else.

But the flu shot, along with a whole lot of other vaccines, are a condition of military employment. You can get a religious or medical exemption, but without one of those you are absolutely getting the shots. Do you think the military should no longer have the right to vaccinate military personnel?

As for state laws and the military, I agree that the military could care less. But depending on how poorly Representative Jeremy Thiesfeldt writes his bill, it could become a bit of a legal battle for someone who doesn't want the shot. Guess it depends on if he writes it up as a limitation of employers, or as a right of Wisconsin residents.

Edited by kevin_trapp 2013-05-21 9:16 AM

I was unaware there was a federal bill on the same subject. Perhaps another thread showing where it was filed might be in order if you get the bill number.

I'm interested in the Wisconsin bill about Wisconsin employers.

The Wisconsin representative writing the Wisconsin bill is Jeremy Thiesfedlt. If he writes up a bill that states all Wisconsin residents are protected from punishment for refusing the flu shot, then I find it conceivable that at some point someone stationed at Ft. McCoy who doesn't want the shot can refuse the shot based off of state law. But you know what, it's really not a point worth arguing. I'll concede that it probably will never happen and even if it does the military will ultimately win. Or they can just ship the guy off to a base in a different state and tell him to get the shot there.

You say you're torn as to whether employers should be able to require vaccines. You worked for an employer that mandated vaccines as a condition of employment. Do you believe the military should be allowed to require vaccines for their personnel? If the military can do it, why can't hospitals? Or vice versa, if hospitals can't require it, then why would we continue to allow the military to require it?

Another analogy. I work in the investment business and if I change jobs, I know I have to take a mandatory drug screen test. So, I can choose to stay in my current job, take the drug test (knowing I'm clean) or find another industry that doesn't consider drug screening as a condition of employment. Both my future employer and the hospital in question is looking to provide a safe environment for other employees as well as its customers.

I see. So you can refuse these drug tests on religious grounds and they cannot fire you, right?
The drug tests inject viruses into your body? It's not just taking an elimination from your body and testing that, right?

It's illegal to ask about religion yet it's legal to require a note from your local Witch Doctor to refuse to be injected with a virus strain that may or may not even be the strain of this year's version of the flu.

Don't care. This has nothing to do with the military. It has to do with WI businesses and WI employees.

When a bill that affects the military comes up and the people in the military have exactly the same situation as WI employees then it'll matter.

Wisconsin employees have every right to look for employment elsewhere if they feel the way you do.

So let me get this straight. A business whose focus is to provide health care to the sick has some rules in place to protect their sick customers from more illness. Then the government now says that work places are not free to determine their own safety policies. How do the "low government" types think this is a good thing? I thought they did not want government involved in our health care at all?