Schweitzer conveys opposition to workplace vaccination rules

Schweitzer Engineer Laboratories founder and President Edmund Schweitzer wrote a letter to Washington Gov. Jay Inslee urging him to rescind new rules requiring employers to verify the vaccination status of their workers.

The Washington Department of Labor and Industries on Friday released information about the new rules.

According to the state, employers must confirm their workers are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 before ending mask and social distance requirements. Employees must either sign a document attesting their vaccination status or provide proof of vaccination.

Employers must demonstrate they have verified the vaccination status of workers who are not masked or physically distanced by creating a log of workers who have been vaccinated, checking vaccination status each day as workers enter the jobsite or by marking a worker’s badge to show they are vaccinated.

“It’s an entirely unnecessary invasion of privacy,” Schweitzer said Monday about the new rules.

In his letter, which was also sent to several Washington legislators, Schweitzer wrote the rules are “an overreach by the government” and “goes against decades of trust built among all of us working at SEL.”

“On behalf of our employee-owners we must object to this wholesale intrusion of the state into our private medical records and health care choices,” the letter states.

In his letter, Schweitzer states the ways SEL has worked to keep employees and the community safe during the pandemic.

The company required employees to wear masks until last week when it modified workplace rules to allow people who are fully vaccinated to remove their masks, per Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.

SEL has implemented sanitization and social distancing practices at its facilities. It has conducted thousands of COVID-19 tests and hosted multiple mass vaccination clinics. According to Schweitzer’s letter, its clinic has vaccinated nearly 25,000 people.

Schweitzer told the Moscow-Pullman Daily News while SEL cares about keeping people safe, it will also fight to defend the privacy of its employees’ medical information.

“We do not need the governor to tell us what to do, much less to ask us to inquire about our employee-owners’ medical history,” he said.

Schweitzer said he has heard from a number of people in the public and private sector who share this sentiment.

Whitman County Commissioner Art Swannack expressed his own unease with the new workplace rules during the commissioners’ weekly meeting Monday.

He said an honor system between employees and employers regarding masks would be more appropriate.

“My opinion is, we trust our employees to be honest,” he said. “Come to work. If they aren’t vaccinated they can wear a mask, if they are vaccinated, they don’t have to.”

Swannack pointed out that businesses do not have to ask if customers are fully vaccinated.

“So what’s the difference between that and your employees?” he said.

During the commissioners meeting, Whitman County Public Health Director Chris Skidmore said asking for proof of vaccination is not considered a violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, according to the Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson.

He said Ferguson’s reasoning is that people who enter a private business without a mask are essentially declaring they are vaccinated. The business can then be allowed to ask for verification of that vaccination.

However, Skidmore has doubts about the state asking employers to create a log of workers who have been vaccinated.

“In terms of having a log of people and their employees that are vaccinated, I do agree that that could very well be a HIPPA violation because that’s essentially a medical record at that point and time, I would think,” he said.

Kuipers can be reached at akuipers@dnews.com.