The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is charged with keeping America’s workplaces safe. Now the tiny Labor Department agency has been tossed into the raging national debate over federal COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
But President Joe Biden this month threw the tiny Labor Department agency into the raging national debate over federal COVID-19 vaccine mandates. The president directed OSHA to write a rule requiring employers with at least 100 workers to force employees to get vaccinated or produce weekly test results showing they are virus free.
“The hazard in this case is the infectious worker,” says epidemiologist David Michaels, OSHA director in the Obama administration. “This rule will tell employers: You have to take steps to make sure potentially infectious workers don’t come into the workplace.” Businesses are anxious to see how OSHA handles questions like: Which vaccines and tests are acceptable and which aren’t? How should employers handle requests from employees who seek exemptions on medical or religious grounds? Who’s going to pay for the testing? Some employers won’t be happy if they have to foot the bill for employees who refuse free vaccinations.
Until June, when it issued a COVID-related ETS covering the health care industry, OSHA hadn’t implemented an emergency rule since 1983. Overall, it has issued 10. But courts have overturned four and partially blocked a fifth, according to the Congressional Research Service. Then again, at a time when companies are posting job openings faster than applicants can fill them, some big employers fear losing vaccine-resistant employees to smaller businesses that aren’t covered by the mandate. “It may actually help these smaller businesses who are struggling to attract employees,” says Nicholas Hulse, a Fisher Phillips labor lawyer based in Charlotte, North Carolina.
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