The employer may impose mandatory vaccinations, which are based on the provisions of the law but the flu vaccination is not one of them. In a typical company, the employer cannot require an employee to be vaccinated against flu.

The Labour Code also does not allow an employer to introduce compulsory vaccination, nor does it provide any consequences if an employee does not decide to do so. Therefore, by refusing to vaccinate against the flu, an employee does not breach their employment duties and therefore cannot be dismissed for this reason. 

If the employer orders the employee to be vaccinated, the employee’s refusal can only deprive them of any compensation claim, if the employee later wishes to accuse his employer that he has become infected with the flu at work and has complications resulting from it.

Employers often cover the cost of flu vaccinations, but this is due to the general obligation of the employer to ensure safe and hygienic working conditions for employees and to the employer’s intention to reduce the incidence of flu among employees. 

The situation is different in case of employment under exposure to harmful biological factors, as the employer is then obliged to use all available means to eliminate the exposure. According to the regulations, a flu virus is a harmful biological factor, so certain categories of employees may be required to take vaccination. An employee’s refusal to do so could then be the basis for the employee to be transferred to another position or dismissed.

The information on the carried out vaccinations may also be considered as a sensitive personal data under the GDPR. The idea of distinguishing this category of data was determined by human right to privacy, but at the same time, the information about vaccinations concerns the health of a given person and as a rule such data cannot be processed. Processing of this data could expose an employee to discrimination, both during the recruitment process for a given position and at a later stage of employment.

Author: Karolina Kowalczyk, trainee attorney-at-law