FOX 2 - It's a big week in the state of Michigan as businesses open back up and all the restrictions are lifted. But what about you heading back to work, what rights do you have? And should your boss be able to ask if you've been vaccinated?
Helping us break it all down in Deborah Brouwer, a metro Detroit employment attorney with Nemeth Law and Chip Cutter, a writer for The Wall Street Journal.
This browser does not support the Video element.
Your Take: Experts explain what employers can ask regarding vaccinations
It's a big week in the state of Michigan as businesses open back up and all the restrictions are lifted. But what about you heading back to work, what rights do you have? And should your boss be able to ask if you've been vaccinated?
FOX 2: "What are the immediate challeges employers and employees will face?"
Cutter: "Many companies are debating right now should we ask employees to get vaccinated? Should we mandate it? Or should we ask for proof of vaccines? over the map on this? A number of big employers across the U. S right now, including Goldman Sachs and others have asked employees to provide their vaccination status. Others have mandated vaccines before people can return to offices, and a number of employers have just said that they're going to encourage vaccines and rely on the employees make their own decisions"
Brouwer: A lot of employers are mandating (vaccines),as Chip mentioned it, or at least they want to know whether their employees are vaccinated or not, so they know how to treat them in the workplace whether they need to stay away from certain employees or to create safe spaces. And I think employees want to know whether their coworkers are vaccinated, too."
One Metro Detroit man who spoke to FOX 2 said he would have no problem if his employer made him get vaccinated before coming to the office. But not everyone feels that way.
Cutter: "There has been some legal cases already against employers that are mandating vaccines. A notable one was in Houston, a big hospital network, there. They required it's more than 26,000 employees get vaccinated. This was the Houston Methodist Hospital Network. Some employees pushed back against that and filed suit against the hospital. But a judge ultimately sided with the hospital network and said that the hospital was within its rights to require people to get vaccinated. The federal government has given employers a lot of cover here to say that they can ask for this.
"And as we've seen, some people are that in order to apply for jobs, you'll need to be vaccinated. We've seen all sorts of companies do this from Delta Airlines to the big meatpacker JBs Foods food, So it's a whole range of different companies that are now putting this on job descriptions and telling people you'll need to get a shot. If you want to get a job here."
For more answers to your questions watch the video at top.