State officials say dozens of Iowans have claimed unemployment benefits after being fired for not complying with workplace Covid-19 vaccine mandates.
A state law passed in late October allows people to get unemployment benefits if their request to be exempt from a vaccination requirement due to religious or medical reasons is denied.
Drake University professor Denise Hill wrote a book about workplace vaccine mandates. She says the number could have been higher if judges hadn’t isssued temporary orders blocking the federal vaccination deadline many U.S. workers faced on January 4.
“Certainly some of the employers, regardless if they are health care or otherwise, have stayed termination,” Hill says.
According to Iowa Workforce Development, 176 people fired from an Iowa business for refusing to get vaccinated filed for unemployment through the middle of last week. More than a third of them worked in health care and social assistance. About a fifth worked in manufacturing.
(By Katarina Sostaric, Iowa Public Radio)