Andrea Hsu
Andrea Hsu is NPR's labor and workplace correspondent.
Hsu first joined NPR in 2002 and spent nearly two decades as a producer for All Things Considered. Through interviews and in-depth series, she's covered topics ranging from America's opioid epidemic to emerging research at the intersection of music and the brain. She led the award-winning NPR team that happened to be in Sichuan Province, China, when a massive earthquake struck in 2008. In the coronavirus pandemic, she reported a series of stories on the pandemic's uneven toll on women, capturing the angst that women and especially mothers were experiencing across the country, alone. Hsu came to NPR via National Geographic, the BBC, and the long-shuttered Jumping Cow Coffee House.
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Citing the high costs associated with Covid illnesses, a growing number of employers are telling employees who decline to be vaccinated to pay up. -
The supply chain is a mess, at virtually every step of the way. From the docks to the warehouses, a lack of space is causing slowdowns, and consumers will be the ones to pay the price.
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Companies with at least 100 employees must ensure their workers get a COVID-19 vaccine or undergo weekly testing. Some 17 million health care workers face a vaccine mandate with no testing option.
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Employers are firing workers for refusing to comply with vaccine mandates. They represent only a tiny fraction of overall employees, not even 1% in some workplaces. But it can add up to thousands.
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In industries ranging from health care to manufacturing to entertainment, workers across the country are willing to strike for better wages and working conditions.
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Workplaces with vaccine mandates are seeing vaccination rates of 90% or higher. A complex mix of factors, including job security, is driving most workers to get the shots.
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OSHA, the small, chronically understaffed federal agency in charge of workplace safety, now faces a big challenge: enforcing a federal vaccine rule covering 80 million workers.
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With vaccine mandates in place all over the country, workers opposed to the shots are requesting religious exemptions, but federal law puts employers in a strong position when weighing the requests.
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President Biden has ordered more than 17 million health care workers to get a COVID-19 vaccine. Some health care employers fear losing large numbers of workers who don't want the shots.
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Many Afghans who have come to the U.S. through the Special Immigrant Visa program are educated and skilled, yet they end up in low wage jobs — a missed opportunity for both workers and employers.
