Comment by thephyber | Hacker News Reader

Comment by thephyber | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> To be totally clear: your employer cannot require you to have a medical procedure, and then fire if you do not comply...

Citation needed.

Vaccine requirements are not out of the norm for most jobs. And in “at will” work states, if your demand to not have a vaccine isn’t in your employment contract, you are most likely out of luck. It is not protected under labor law, employment law (unless your union negotiated that point specifically), and is not a protected category.

I personally would prefer the frequent testing or proof of antibodies as alternatives (it would lessen the political polarity of the issue), but I’m not overreacting and pretending like a vaccine mandate is equivalent to rounding up Jews in German-occupied Poland. In the scheme of things that Americans have suffered (but legally and illegally) at the hands of our governments and our employers, this vaccine is diminutive.

Biden’s mandate that covers private companies which are not government contractors is questionable (I’m interested to see how the appeals go), but any org/company which has existing service/vendor contracts with the federal government is likely to be reaffirmed.

SCOTUS ruled over a century ago that vaccines are reasonable to be mandated by governments under certain conditions. There is no federal mandate for all residents, but any city/state that wants to mandate it is supported by jurisprudence. It is honestly really worrying that Republican legislators in many states are rolling back legal requirements for vaccines of far deadlier diseases while virtue signaling their political allegiance against COVID vaccines.

I think you also ignore how much Americans already tolerate when you pretend like one of three well tested vaccines is something that will cause mass unrest.

> SCOTUS ruled over a century ago that vaccines are reasonable to be mandated by governments under certain conditions.

So are we ok with anything that has been "ruled" already? Or only when the ruled thing goes in line with what we think? Because a lot of stuff has been ruled in the past 2 centuries that I'm sure you would scream bloody murder if someone from the other side defended it.

The parent used the word “cannot” instead of “should not”. This argument is about the law in practice, not ethics.

I would probably agree with you if we were tabula rasa writing a new legal framework, but we aren’t.

re: "at will"

You've fallen for a misconception that there are 2 types of states in the US as regards the type of reasons an employee can be fired: "at will," and "right to work." That's incorrect. In fact, when it comes to being able to be fired for almost arbitrary reasons (e.g. boss doesn't like the color of your car, or something), there are 2 types of states, but they are "at will," and "Montana."

Let me explain that a bit.

First of all, "at will" and "right to work" are neither opposites nor mutually exclusive. "Right to work" simply means that, if there is a union in the company, people who join the union can't be forced to contribute to the union. [0] In other words, it bans what are called "union shops." As you can tell, this has literally nothing to do with the legal reasons which one can be fired for. Every "right to work" state is also an "at-will" state.

"At will" means pretty much what you think it does: that, absent a specific employment contract stating otherwise, an employee can be fired for almost any reason that isn't considered discriminatory or retaliatory under federal law. [1] There are some nuances to this, but, employers know how to do the dance to get around these things, for the most part, so, you're probably not going to fall under any of the exceptions. Chances are pretty good, actually, that you acknowledged that you are an at-will employee in your offer letter.

Now... Montana. Montana is the oddball here. In Montana, once you've worked for an employer for 1 year, or the length of the probation period specified in that employer's policies, you can't be fired without "good cause." Under Montana law, "Good cause is generally defined, in Montana, as reasonable job related grounds for dismissal based upon (1) a failure to satisfactorily perform job duties, (2) disruption of the employer’s operation, or (3) other legitimate business reasons." [2]. Specifically, an employee can't be fired for "no reason," or a silly reason like "boss doesn't like the color of your car."

Montana is completely unique in this regard. No other state offers this kind of protection to an employee.

So, to summarize: "right to work" has nothing to do with "at-will," and all states are "at-will" except for Montana.

---

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment

[2]: https://kortumlawoffice.com/areas-of-practice/employment-law...

The ruling that you mention was also used to sterilize disabled people. It is funny that you mention Nazi Germany...they did that there too. But, of course, everyone else is just overreacting, the ends justify the means, only people of true vision can break free of the rules that limit others, the ubermensch has appeared, hail.

And yes, there are medical exemptions, there are religious exemptions, there are lots of exemptions because, again, it is fairly obvious that the state forcing people to have medical procedures is not a good idea. Trying to say that you have suffered so much already (please, pathetic) so the vaccine is fine is one of the weakest arguments. That can be used to justify anything if you just tell people how hard your life is. You have no moral compass. Something is a good idea or not.

Wow. Your projection of my opinions / morals is pretty telling.

My statements were about the legal current state of things, not how they _should_ be. The grandparent comment was not arguing ethics, but what “cannot” be done, hence I didn’t discuss ethics/morals.

The state only exists _because_ individuals can’t do everything on their own. The state forces people to pay taxes, forces people into cages when they violate criminal laws, forces young men into the military during times of war, etc. Yes, the state (in practice, and likely should) force people to take significant interventions to prevent deadly contagious diseases. There is an argument to be had about whether COVID-19 qualifies or whether specific interventions should be mandated for this particular disease, but this intervention follows directly from state efforts to mitigate the harm of Smallpox, Polio, Influenza, etc.

My comment did not state that _I_ have suffered. It was a comment about the society that I live in and therefore the social contract that we have with the government.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com