Advocates who organized a State House march and urged the Legislature to push back against President Biden’s employer vaccine mandates say a bill signed into law by Gov. Kay Ivey last week won’t stop discrimination against employees who decline to take vaccines.
Health Freedom Alabama issued a statement about SB 9, which lawmakers passed on the last night of a special session last Thursday. Ivey signed it on Friday.
The bill prohibits employers from firing employees for refusing to take a COVID-19 vaccine if they fill out a form claiming a medical or religious exemption.
Sen. Chris Elliott, R-Fairhope, the bill’s sponsor, and other supporters of the legislation said it was an effort to help people at risk of losing their jobs while the state battles the mandate in court.
Stephanie Durnin, co-director of Health Freedom Alabama, issued a statement Saturday morning saying the new law does not do enough. Health Freedom Alabama supported another bill, HB 9, intended to prohibit employers from discriminating against employees because they are unvaccinated. That would apply to pay, promotions and demotions, work conditions, and other issues in addition to hiring and firing. HB 9 did not advance during the special session.
In its statement about SB 9, the bill that passed, Health Freedom Alabama said the prohibition on firing employees for refusing to take a vaccine won’t stop employers from requiring unvaccinated employees to take COVID-19 tests regularly or otherwise treat them differently than vaccinated workers.
“By not addressing this issue as one of discrimination and focusing only on the exemption issue, our legislators left Alabama employees subject to demotions, denying promotions, and other forms of unfair treatment of unvaccinated employees,” the statement says. “If employers can’t fire employees for having an exemption, they most certainly can make their work life miserable so that they leave on their own.”
“Elliott’s SB 9 is a castrated bill with no penalties listed for employers who would seek to break this new law and that leaves Alabama workers without any recourse if they are illegally terminated,” the statement says. “Furthermore, this bill does not provide any further protections to our citizens than is already afforded them by federal law. Adding a state law that has no penalties will not deter the illegal actions of employers that we are already seeing when they deny federally protected religious exemptions.”
The Business Council of Alabama opposed SB 9, saying the new requirements in state law would put businesses in difficult spots. Federal contractors, in particular, would face difficulty because they are bound to follow the Biden mandate or risk losing their contracts, which could eliminate thousands of jobs.
The new law created by SB 9 will expire after May 2023 unless the Legislature passes a law to extend it.
Elliott declined to comment on the Health Freedom Alabama statement.