Every day more employers are telling employees they need to be vaccinated against COVID-19 to work in person or risk being released from their job. In other words, FIRED!
CNN revealed it had fired three unvaccinated employees for violating the company’s vaccine requirement for in-person workers, according to an internal memo signed by Jeff Zucker, the cable network’s president.
Unlike millions of Americans who were laid off during the pandemic, the three former CNN employees likely won’t qualify for unemployment benefits, say employment law experts.
CNN parent company WarnerMedia, a unit of AT&T T, +0.25%, declined to comment on the firings.
In most states, individuals have to prove they’re out of work through no fault of their own to collect unemployment benefits.“Typically, an employee who is terminated for failing to comply with company policies is not eligible for unemployment benefits, which would include refusing to comply with a company’s COVID-19 prevention policies, masking requirements or vaccine requirements,” Ackels told MarketWatch.
But an employee who has proof of a medical exemption or religious objection to receiving a COVID-19 vaccine may still be eligible to collect unemployment benefits if fired, said Rebecca Dixon, executive director at the National Employment Law Project, a nonprofit that advocates for worker’s rights.
Otherwise, refusing to get a COVID-19 vaccine, if your employer requires one, “is akin to an employee’s refusal to submit to permissible drug tests or participate in safety trainings,” said Ronald Zambrano, employment law chair at West Coast Trial Lawyers, a Los Angeles–based law firm. That is, such an employee, when terminated, would not qualify for unemployment benefits, Zambrano said.
Ultimately, “this could lead to tens of thousands of people across the United States without work or access to unemployment benefits because they refuse to get vaccinated,” Zambrano said.
If an employee resigns over refusal to get vaccinated when an employer requires it, securing unemployment payments appears unlikely. “If you quit because of the mandate then you’d have to have good cause attributable to the employer in order to collect unemployment benefits,” Dixon said. “Good cause is usually viewed from that of a reasonable person. Given the overwhelming evidence of the safety of the vaccine, it’s likely that good cause would not be found” in the case of a person who quits a job because of a vaccine mandate.
With that condition in mind, state workforce departments can update “eligibility requirements such that, depending on the circumstances, employees fired for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine could be eligible for unemployment benefits,” Ackels said.
“However, a violation of an employer’s policy is not always a disqualifying circumstance,” she added. “We review the facts and circumstances of each case before making a determination of eligibility. Businesses concerned about being charged for unemployment benefits should check the latest guidance from their state unemployment commissions to confirm whether an employee fired for refusing the vaccine would be eligible for benefits,” Ackels said.
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