Heads up, employers. While it might seem like COVID-19 is winding down, the EEOC is still taking action on COVID-related claims from employees.
According to data from the EEOC, between April 2020 and December 2021, the commission received over 6,000 discrimination claims that involved COVID-19.
Once the COVID-19 vaccine became widely accessible and employers began implementing vaccine mandates, the EEOC received about 2,700 charges, employees citing ADA violations and religious discrimination.
3 court cases
So far, the EEOC has brought three COVID-related disability lawsuits to court.
The first involved a health and safety manager at a manufacturing plant in Georgia. She had a heart condition, which increased her COVID-19 risk. She asked to continue working from home, but her employer fired her instead. The claim also alleges other employees were permitted to continue remote work after the plant reopened.
The other lawsuits are similar in that employers discriminated against employees at higher risk of COVID-19. Another case involved a pharmacy tech in Texas. The employee had asthma and wanted to wear a face mask to protect himself from the virus (the employer had a policy prohibiting masks).
The employee was harassed by co-workers for wearing a mask, and also sent home several times for violating the employer’s no-mask policy. The pharmacy tech ended up quitting.
In a different lawsuit in Texas, two disabled baristas were discriminated against after their employer refused to give them a reasonable accommodation in order to limit contact with customers. Instead, the baristas were told they could only come back to work once they were vaccinated and no longer needed an accommodation.
Continue to accommodate
A lot of lessons can be learned from these EEOC lawsuits. Even though COVID-19 restrictions and precautions are decreasing, employers still have a duty to accommodate susceptible employees.
As shown in the above cases, preventing employees from working in order to protect them from an illness isn’t an adequate accommodation. Employers should only deny an accommodation request if the worker would pose a risk of significant harm to themselves or others around them — and this risk can’t be eliminated or reduced with a reasonable accommodation.
Due to the sheer amount of charges, employers can expect the EEOC to continue filing COVID-related lawsuits even as the pandemic continues to wane.