Centner Academy, a private school in Miami, recently became a beacon for anti-vaxxers around the world after its co-founder and CEO sent a letter to teachers urging themto get the vaccine until after the school year ends and informing them that, if they then receive the vaccine, they will not have a job to return to. Teachers who had already been vaccinated were told that they must stay away from students.
In some ways, this superficially resembles an enforceable workplace rule — the school cited health and safety concerns as the reason for the ban, which in many cases can serve to justify a wide array of invasive workplace rules such as drug and alcohol testing or compulsory vaccinations. The problem is that the school’s stated concerns have no basis whatsoever in scientific fact. Instead, the disinformation is potentially endangering the health and safety of its staff and students.
From a legal standpoint, prohibiting employees from receiving the vaccine creates a smorgasbord of legal difficulties. In Canada, an employer attempting to enforce a workplace anti-vaccination policy would be opening itself up to a host of liabilities, including claims for constructive dismissal, discrimination, work refusals and fines under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, even private lawsuits from employees who contract COVID-19 in that workplace.
Contrary to popular belief, non-unionized employers can put in place a wide array of seemingly arbitrary rules and, as long as they provide appropriate severance and don’t discriminate based on the narrow grounds in human rights legislation, can terminate employment for whatever reason they wish, or for no reason at all.
But disciplining employees for taking safety precautions to protect themselves from workplace hazards is fundamentally alien to Canadian employment law, which requires employers to actively foster healthy and safe workplaces. Anyone who finds themselves subject to such discipline would have a clear claim for constructive dismissal. Their employer would be liable for wrongful dismissal damages and further damages for the bad faith manner of the dismissal.