PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The federal agency that enforces anti-workplace discrimination laws has new guidance about COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) updated its guidelines to clarify to employers about vaccine mandates and religious exemptions. The new rules separate religious beliefs from political ones.
The EEOC says an employee with a sincere religious belief can be excused from a company’s mandatory COVID-19 policy, but employees do not qualify to be excused on the basis of their social, political or economic views.
“While it may be relevant to sincerity, an individual’s beliefs or degree of adherence to them can change over time,” said KYW Newsradio legal correspondent Amy E. Feldman. “So an employee’s newly adopted or inconsistently observed practices may still be considered a sincerely held belief. So it is still a bit of a minefield, to be honest.”
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However, Feldman said even if an employer grants an employee a vaccine exemption based on religion, it doesn’t mean the employer is obligated to accommodate their needs further.
“Because the guidance did say that courts have found Title VII’s undue hardship on the employer would happen where religious accommodation would impair workplace safety or diminish efficiency in other jobs or cause coworkers to carry the accommodated employee’s share of burdensome work,” she explained.
“So that means even if you accept that this person has a valid religious reason not to get one, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to put them back where they were before.”
The EEOC says state or local laws could conflict with its guidelines, and if they do, it would need to be worked out through negotiations.