Texas governor signs bill barring private employers from requiring COVID vaccines

Registered nurse Toby Hatton administers a dose of the Pfizer-BioNtech COVID-19 vaccine to Commissioner Dr. John William Hellerstedt of the Texas Department of State Health Services at the Ascension Seton Medical Center on Tuesday, Dec. 22, 2020. At left, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
(Ricardo B. Brazziell /Austin American-Statesman via AP)

Mid-Michigan Now
by ADELA UCHIDA | KEYE Staff
Sat, November 11th 2023, 2:30 PM GMT-7

AUSTIN, Texas (KEYE) — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill into law Friday banning private employers from mandating their workers get the COVID-19 vaccine.

Senate Bill 7 is from the previous third special session. The law means if a private employer tries to make workers get the COVID-19 vaccine, they could be facing a $50,000 fine and a lawsuit from the attorney general's office.

This bill is extraordinarily important when it comes to individual freedom,” said Abbott.

It doesn't apply to just employees.

The text of the bill reads: “An employer may not adopt or enforce a mandate requiring an employee, contractor, applicant for employment, or applicant for a contract position to be vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition of employment or a contract position.”

That makes it one of the broadest such laws in the country, according to one of its authors, Rep. Jeff Leach, a Republican from Collin County.

“It covers prospective employers and prospective employees and that’s part of what makes it so broad,” Leach said.

SB 7 became law more than two years after Houston Methodist Hospital ousted 150 employees for refusing to get vaccinated for the coronavirus. The new law does not exempt hospitals and healthcare facilities from the ban but does allow them to require unvaccinated workers to take precautions.

Critics say the law takes away the choice for employers to manage their businesses as they see fit and makes it more dangerous for people who are medically vulnerable to be out in public.

But the Republican governor has long taken a stance against vaccine requirements, signing an executive order back in October 2021 after the Houston hospital employees were fired.

It said, in part: "No entity in Texas can compel receipt of a COVID-19 vaccine by any individual, including an employee or a consumer, who objects to such vaccination," and the bill expands those same restrictions to private businesses.

This law adds to the law that I already signed that prohibits state or local governments from imposing COVID mandates,” Abbott told reporters. “It’s long past time to put COVID behind us and restore individual freedom to all Texans.”