"We want you in the office": these American banks which force their employees to be vaccinated

"

If you can eat out in New York, then you can come to the office and we want you at the office,

" James Gorman said on June 14.

To this (strong) incentive to return to work in "face-to-face", the managing director of the bank Morgan Stanley had added a more surprising element: the return to the office of its employees will necessarily rhyme with a vaccination against the Covid-19.

However, Morgan Stanley is not an isolated case: other financial institutions in the United States have chosen to impose vaccination on their employees to return to work or attend certain meetings.

Read also: No vaccine, no office: Morgan Stanley's new rule in New York

Morgan Stanley will therefore impose from July 12 vaccination to its employees in New York and Westchester if they want to resume face-to-face.

After this deadline, it will no longer be possible for the non-vaccinated to cross the doors.

The group had already set up workspaces reserved exclusively for vaccinated staff a few months ago.

The return at all costs

These measures are reminiscent of those taken by Goldman Sachs.

The bank had, in an internal statement, strongly encouraged its employees to be vaccinated, even if its managing director David Solomonn did not impose it completely, indicating "to

understand that the choice to be vaccinated is personal.

»If vaccination is therefore not mandatory, employees are required to disclose their vaccination status to their company.

“Executives want to get back to the office as soon as possible, much faster than their employees.

"

Bhushan Sethi, Associate Managing Director of PWC

The asset management group BlackRock has also announced that it will open its offices only to vaccinated employees, and asked for the vaccination status of each employee.

Other banks, like JPMorgan, are more flexible and the publication of its vaccination status remains optional.

Legal measures in the United States

All of these companies are taking advantage of flexible US regulations around the vaccine. The EEOC (*), the American federal agency responsible for respecting labor rights, had authorized in December that companies prohibit access to their offices to employees refusing to be vaccinated. Criticisms have started to emerge, however. John Lomax, a lawyer with the American firm Snell & Wilmer, noted for the human resources company SHRM that "an

employee facing a religious objection or a disability may need to be excused or accommodated from another. way.

"

With these strong incentives for vaccination, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs are predicting a full comeback as early as July, when Bank of America or Morgan Stanley are aiming for a return for September.

If he did not reach this goal, James Gorman assured that he would be "

very disappointed".

The tone is set.

SEE ALSO

- United States: free beers and anti-Covid vaccine on the menu of a brewery.

(*) The responsible body is the EEOC, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.