Businesses brace for Biden Covid vaccine mandate as Republicans threaten lawsuits

Under the law, the labor secretary has the authority to issue what’s called an emergency temporary standard if he or she determines workers “face grave danger from exposure to substances or agents determined to be toxic or physically harmful or from new hazards.” The emergency standard is supposed to be replaced by a permanent rule after six months.

The Republican attorneys general argued in their September letter that employees in general are not in grave danger from Covid due to the level of vaccination in the public and natural immunity among those who have caught the virus and since recovered.

They also argued that OSHA can only regulate hazards specific to the workplace, not those generally present in the world at large. The National Retail Federation echoed that view in its letter.

“The agency cannot expect employers to control their employees’ behavior during their activities outside of work,” the federation’s top lobbyist David French wrote.

“Workers face the danger of COVID-19 wherever they go,” French said. “They are endangered by COVID-19, because they are human beings going about the world, not because they go to work.”

That is a point where Republicans and Democrats largely disagree. The virus has infected almost 45 million Americans, killing more than 721,000, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

“OSHA’s mandate is to protect workers from hazards and in this case an infected worker, an unvaccinated worker, is a potential hazard to other employees,” said Jordan Barab, deputy assistant secretary of OSHA during the Obama administration.

The rule will allow those who don’t want to get vaccinated to opt for weekly testing instead. More than 65% of the U.S. population has had at least one Covid shot, while 56% are fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

However, many employers may decide that it’s more cost efficient to just require vaccines at the outset, according to David Michaels, the former head of OSHA under the Obama administration and an epidemiologist.

“Many of us hope most employers will do what United [Airlines] has done and say all workers must get vaccinated unless they have a medical condition or strongly held religious belief,” said Michaels, who is now a professor at George Washington University.

Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/15/businesses-brace-for-biden-vaccine-mandate-as-republicans-threaten-lawsuits.html