Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s legislation prohibiting businesses from mandating vaccination against COVID-19 without exemptions has forced Walt Disney World to suspend its own employee vaccine mandate.
Disney said that although 90% of its “active” employees have provided proof of vaccination, it will no longer require its employees to get vaccinated to remain employed. The company told the Washington Post it plans to “address legal developments as appropriate,” and insisted that its “approach to mandatory vaccines has been the right one.”
The move comes just one week after DeSantis signed legislation requiring all businesses in the state to grant religious and medical exemptions to vaccine mandates without question. The bill also allows employees to opt for regular COVID-19 testing instead of being required to get the vaccine.
“There’s times you need to stand up and you need to make your voice heard, and we had the ability to do it,” he said. “At the end of the day, nobody in Florida should be losing their job over these jabs.
“We want people to be able to work, we want people to be able to provide for their families,” DeSantis said. “We want people to be able to have livelihoods, and that’s just the way it’s going to be in this state.”
Companies that violate the laws will be fined up to $50,000 per violation, while smaller businesses with fewer than 99 employees could face up to $10,000 per violation.
The anti-vaccine mandate legislation was drafted in response to President Joe Biden’s “unconstitutional” employer vaccine mandate, DeSantis said, and his attempt to force his will on the American public.
“The states are the primary vehicles to protect people’s freedoms, their health, their safety, their welfare, in our constitutional system,” he said. “What Biden is doing is not constitutional. There has never been a federal vaccine mandate imposed on the general public.”
