Texas Private Employer COVID-19 Vaccination Mandates Prohibited Effective February 6, 2024


After February 5, 2024, a new Texas law will prohibit Texas private employers from requiring employees get Covid – 19 vaccinations.

Senate Bill 7 bans private employers from requiring COVID-19 vaccines in the workplace. The new law will take effect on February 6, 2024. The law contains no exceptions for healthcare providers such as hospitals. Instead, the law allows healthcare and other employers previously to require unvaccinated staff to wear masks and other protective equipment.

Chapter 81B of the Texas Health and Safety Code already prohibits state and local governments from adopting workplace vaccine mandates. Provisions of the new law prohibiting private employer COVID-19 vaccination mandates will be incorporated in the newly created Chapter 81D. Accordingly, Texas law will prohibit all public and private employers from imposing workforce Covid – 19 vaccinations after February 5, 2024.

During the Covid – 19 pandemic, federal law, mandated workplace vaccination mandates for hospitals, government contractors, and various other organizations. During the course of the pandemic, these mandates were substantially eviscerated by a series of court decisions, and other regulatory modifications before ultimately being suspended or withdrawn by the close of the pandemic. Although the limitation and suspension of these federal mandates as an explicit requirement eliminated noncompliance with the mandates as a basis for per se prosecution under these requirements, it did not fully eliminate potential employer exposure for failing to require vaccination under federal law., Advocates for vaccination have argued that requiring vaccination during a period of contagion for Covid – 19 or other contagious diseases may be required to comply with the general duty clause under the Occupational Health & Safety Act. Since the abatement of Covid – 19 pandemic, this risk has been lessof a concern to most employers.

With Covid – 19 infection rates rising in recent months, however, employers generally will want to evaluate and document their policies and efforts to protect their workers from Covid – 19 and other highly contagious diseases in their workplaces taking account mandates, safety standards, and specific statute like the new Texas vaccination ban well to mitigate potential federal, occupational health and safety act, liability, exposures and costs and operational disruptions that typically follow an outbreak in their workplaces.

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We hope this update is helpful. For more information about these or other health or other legal, management or public policy developments, please contact the author Cynthia Marcotte Stamer via e-mail or via telephone at (214) 452 -8297. 

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About the Author

Recognized by her peers as a Martindale-Hubble “AV-Preeminent” (Top 1%) and “Top Rated Lawyer” with special recognition LexisNexis® Martindale-Hubbell® as “LEGAL LEADER™ Texas Top Rated Lawyer” in Health Care Law and Labor and Employment Law; as among the “Best Lawyers In Dallas” for her work in the fields of “Labor & Employment,” “Tax: ERISA & Employee Benefits,” “Health Care” and “Business and Commercial Law” by D Magazine, Cynthia Marcotte Stamer is a practicing attorney board certified in labor and employment law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization and management consultant, author, public policy advocate and lecturer widely known for 35 plus years of health industry and other management work, public policy leadership and advocacy, coaching, teachings, and publications.

A Fellow in the American College of Employee Benefit Counsel, Co-Chair of the American Bar Association (“ABA”) International Section Life Sciences and Health Committee and VIce-Chair Elect of its International Employment Law Committee, Chair-Elect of the ABA TIPS Section Medicine & Law Committee, Past Chair of the ABA Managed Care & Insurance Interest Group, Scribe for the ABA JCEB Annual Agency Meeting with HHS-OCR, past chair of the ABA RPTE Employee Benefits & Other Compensation Group and current co-Chair of its Welfare Benefit Committee, and Chair of the ABA Intellectual Property Section Law Practice Management Committee, Ms. Stamer is most widely recognized for her decades of pragmatic, leading-edge work, scholarship and thought leadership on healthcare and life science, managed care and insurance and other workforce and staffing, employee benefits, safety, contracting, quality assurance, compliance and risk management, and other legal, public policy and operational concerns in the healthcare and life sciences, employee benefits, managed care and insurance, technology and other related industries. She speaks and publishes extensively on these and other related compliance issues.

Ms. Stamer’s work throughout her career has focused heavily on working with health care and managed care, life sciences, health and other employee benefit plan, insurance and financial services and other public and private organizations and their technology, data, and other service providers and advisors domestically and internationally with legal and operational compliance and risk management, performance and workforce management, regulatory and public policy and other legal and operational concerns. Scribe for the ABA JCEB Annual Meeting with the HHS Office of Civil Rights, her experience includes extensive involvement throughout her career in advising health care and life sciences and other clients about preventing, investigating and defending EEOC, DOJ, OFCCP and other Civil Rights Act, Section 1557 and other HHS, HUD, banking, and other federal and state discrimination investigations, audits, lawsuits and other enforcement actions as well as advocacy before Congress and regulators regarding federal and state equal opportunity, equity and other laws. 

For more information about Ms. Stamer or her labor and employment, employee benefit, health industry and other experience and involvements, see www.cynthiastamer.com or contact Ms. Stamer via telephone at (214) 452-8297 or via e-mail here. 

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