You're still thinking this is Covid related, huh? If it were Covid related they would have mentioned that. "Excluded from work" is lawyerspeak that means nothing.
In the pre-COVID world I’d have agreed with you....now not so much. Keeping employees “safe” in the COVID world has complicated things, greatly, at least for my company. And we are fortunate enough to be able to work from home. And we generally don’t have direct contact with customers. For a ski hill (or any other business) where people have to work closely together, and have contact with customers, it’s got to be even more difficult. I’ve spent a lot of time with our labor compliance, legal, and HR teams putting screening systems in place and adjusting policy on who can and cannot come to work (yes, people are “excluded” from doing so) under certain circumstances, and what that all means for labor charging, use of PTO and/or excused absences, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.......etc., etc. Same for my wife, where having contact with students and dealing with what contact tracing means for when and where (remote, in person) they can or can’t teach, and when they do or don’t have to take sick leave, and how much they will be paid if they do or don’t use sick leave under certain conditions, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc......etc., etc. It’s a mess.
That particular mess isn’t Vail’s fault. What is Vail’s fault is creating a labor situation where employees aren’t committed to helping the company navigate their way through that mess.
However, employees (or students) definitely can be excluded from going to school or work if they don’t pass a screening or have been identified through contact tracing as someone who may have been exposed, it’s definitely a thing.