Vaccine Mandates for Condominium and Cooperative Building Employees: Union vs. Non-Union

Many condominium and cooperative boards in New York City have asked whether they can mandate the vaccination of their building employees. Implementation of a vaccine mandate may implicate, among other things, union concerns, requests for disability accommodations, and religious exemptions. This is an evolving area, but recently, SEIU Local 32BJ (“Union”), which is the union most condominium and cooperative employees belong to, and the Realty Advisory Board on Labor Relations, Inc., which represents owners, contractors, management and service organizations aligned with property owners (“RAB”), entered into a Memorandum of Agreement (“MOA”) concerning vaccine policies. The MOA does not provide for mandatory vaccinations, but rather encourages employees to get vaccinated, calls for continuing educational efforts concerning vaccines, provides for logistical help to obtain vaccines, and allows employers to obtain information about vaccination status and even the reasons why unvaccinated employees have chosen not to be vaccinated.

The MOA does not apply to non-union buildings. As a result, in non-union buildings, boards may adopt mandatory vaccination policies. We have prepared these policies for our clients.

It is important to note that boards that enact a vaccination requirement may have to consider requests for accommodations from any employees who have disability-related or religious objections to being vaccinated. Reasonable accommodations may have to be provided to such employees, particularly if the board cannot establish that it will be subject to undue hardship if the employee remains unvaccinated.