After a quiet summer on the flu front, employment lawyer Rebecca Bernhard noticed a decided uptick in inquiries when it got cold earlier this month from business clients asking what they can and should do if the H1N1 virus visits their workplace.

Sitting in her St. Cloud office for the Minneapolis firm of Gray Plant Mooty, attorney Jackie Schuh experienced a similar increase in calls seeking advice from clients around Minnesota about what to do if the virus surfaces in the workplace.

The employers had a range of questions for the attorneys. Could they mandate employee vaccinations? Could they require families of workers to be vaccinated? Did they have to pay workers sent home who lacked sick leave? Could they ask people to work from home if they are sick? What about workers who had to stay home and tend to sick kids?

"This potential for an outbreak is probably over-hyped, but you'd hate not to be worried about it," said Bernhard, a member of the labor and employment practice group at the Minneapolis firm of Oppenheimer Wolff & Donnelly. "This is probably the first year that I've received calls about the flu."

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