“My colleagues and I here at Koprince McCall Pottroff have been hearing lots of questions about the new COVID-19 vaccine mandate for certain employees of federal government contractors. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the pandemic-related rise in remote work, one of the most common questions is ‘are work-from-home employees required to be vaccinated?’
The answer, it turns out, is ‘it depends.’…”
“For purposes of this post, let’s assume that a contractor determines that it is a ‘covered contractor.’ (That’s a term that is also defined in the guidance, but is outside the scope of our discussion of work-from home employees). With that assumption, an employee is covered if he or she:
- Is working on or in connection with a covered contract; or
- Is working at a covered contractor workplace.
Note that I emphasized the ‘or.’ An employee is covered if either #1 or #2 applies to that employee. So in the case of an employee who works from home, the first question is whether that employee is working on or in connection with a covered contract. (‘Covered contract’ is also defined in the guidance, and the Task Force also provides some clarification–though perhaps not enough–about what it means to work ‘in connection with’ a covered contract.)…”
“In a Q&A included in the guidance, the Task Force addressed this issue directly:
Q11: How does this Guidance apply to covered contractor employees who are authorized under the covered contract to perform work remotely from their residence?
A: An individual working on a covered contract from their residence is a covered contractor employee, and must comply with the vaccination requirement for covered contractor employees, even if the employee never works at either a covered contractor workplace or Federal workplace during the performance of the contract…” Read the full article here.
Source: Contractor Vaccine Mandate: What About Work-From-Home Employees? – By Steven Koprince, October 21, 2021. SmallGovCon.
