A growing number of organizations — both public and private — have started to institute vaccine mandates for their employees, ranging from Google and Disney to the state of New York and federal workplaces. What are the legal issues behind such requirements? To get some clarity, Jim Braude was joined on Greater Boston by Brian Richichi, an employment litigator at Krokidas & Bluestein LLP in Boston.

According to Richichi, there is subtle distinction: While employers can’t require employees to go out and get vaccinated, they can require that everyone in a workplace be vaccinated, because of the threat of COVID-19 and the Delta variant. “There’s nothing that would stop a private employer from requiring all its employees to be vaccinated before coming into the workplace,” Richichi said.

WATCH: Can your employer mandate a COVID vaccine?