LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS- October 17th, 2021– Last week Arkansas passed a bill that requires employers create Covid vaccine exemption policies. To protect employees seeking exemptions form the vaccine.
Whether an employer has their own vaccine mandate. Or the vaccine mandate is required by the federal government. Senate Bill 739 now requires employers in Arkansas to have clear exemption policies to protect employees from vaccine mandates.
Additionally, the bill requires the Department of Finance and Administration to establish funding for any testing costs that may be required to create exemption policies.
The bill states that the vaccine mandates passed by the federal government are “an overreach of power”. Governor Hutchinson, who does not support the legislation abstained from signing the bill into law.
In a press release he stated:
“These bills are unnecessary, and the conversation has been harmful to our goal of encouraging vaccines. For those reasons I will not sign the bills into law with my signature. I will allow them to become law without signing.”
This bill is passed one week after Texas bans all vaccine mandates.
