Companies can make employees take COVID-19 vaccine, EEOC says

Employers are allowed to require the COVID-19 vaccine, and can also legally provide incentives, including cash, to workers who get jabbed, according to updated guidance from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. 

Companies must still provide reasonable accommodation for employees who are exempt from mandatory immunization under the Americans with Disabilities Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. 

The commission also stated that employer incentives must not be "coercive," but stopped short of providing examples of illegal offers. 

Some experts say there's enough legal gray area that a flurry of lawsuits could arise as companies start to bring their workers back to the physical workplace as the COVID-19 pandemic eases in the U.S.

"What is 'coercive' is unclear because, just as with anything else, one person's view of what is a coercive incentive is not the same as another person's," said Helen Rella, an employment attorney at New York-based law firm Wilk Auslander. "You might find an incentive of $100 coercive and another person might find an incentive of $10,000 coercive. That's where the door is left open [where] we don't have the detailed guidance we were hoping to receive."

The EEOC was due to update its guidance regarding the vaccine and other COVID-related matters.