At the urging of ASA and members of the ASA employee safety committee, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently updated its website to state that temporary workers should be included in clients’ vaccination plans for essential workplaces. This development is significant, as some health care clients had been reluctant to include temporary workers.
Specifically, CDC states: “For workers employed by contract firms or temporary help agencies, the staffing agency and the host employer are joint employers and, therefore, both are responsible for providing and maintaining a safe work environment. Workers should be considered for vaccination prioritization according to the primary industry activities at the site(s) where they work, even if the industry category of their actual employer does not fall within these lists. If offering on-site vaccination to employees, host employers should consider offering vaccination to temporary and/or contracted employees.”
In addition, in its Essential Workers Tool Kit, CDC makes this statement to staffing clients: “If you plan to offer vaccination at your workplace, consider providing vaccination to all people working at the workplace, regardless of their status as a contract or temporary employee. What is most important is to encourage everyone at the work site to be vaccinated, no matter what their work arrangement is.”
ASA participates in the government’s National Occupational Research Agenda service sector group, which provides a research framework to CDC. Through NORA, ASA urged CDC to address clients’ vaccination of temporary workers.
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