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President Biden Thursday established a broad plan to fight the pandemic, including by requiring companies with more than 100 employees to force their workers to be vaccinated or to undergo weekly tests.
The move comes as airlines, restaurants and other businesses are already feeling pain economic decline caused by the Delta variant of the virus. The new rule, which Biden asked the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to set up by developing a temporary emergency standard, will affect some 80 million workers.
Many companies were already moving towards mandates. In a recent Willis Towers Watson Poll, 52% of respondents said they plan to institute immunization mandates by the end of the year, and 21% said they already have such requirements.
But many of these mandates, including in companies like Goldman Sachs and UPS, focused on white collar workers, who tend to have higher vaccination rates. This The presidential directive will help industries facing labor shortages, such as retail and hospitality, impose a demand on their frontline workers.
“It level the playing field,” said Ian Schaefer, partner at Loeb & Loeb law firm.
Companies will now be faced with new decisions, such as whether to take the tab for weekly testing and how to handle religious exemptions – tasks many already find difficult.
A recent poll by Aon out of 583 global companies, among employers with immunization mandates, 48% said they allow religious exemptions; only 7 percent said they would fire a worker for refusing to be vaccinated.
Among the unanswered questions:
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How will the government collect, store and track information on employee vaccinations?
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What penalties will companies face if they choose not to follow the new requirement?
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Does it apply to all workers, or only to those who walk into an office?
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When will the new rules come into effect?
The reaction was, unsurprisingly, mixed. The Business Roundtable and the US Chamber of Commerce have both praised the actions of the Biden administration. But Gov. Greg Gianforte, Republican of Montana, the only state to ban vaccination warrants, called the new rules “illegal and anti-american. “The Republican National Committee declared he intended to continue.
It is not clear whether the legal challenges will be successful. OSHA Temporary Emergency Standards take precedence over existing state government rules, except in states that have their own OSHA approved labor agencies. (About half do.) The legal basis for a challenge is probably weakest in states that fall directly under OSHA’s jurisdiction, such as Montana, Texas, and Florida.
Are you running or working in a company that will be affected by the new vaccine mandate? If so, we would love to hear from you. E-mail [email protected] and please let us know how to reach you if we need to know more.
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