USPS workers ARE part of the federal vaccine mandate under OSHA jurisdiction

[mahatmakanejeeves]

JUST IN: White House official now says USPS workers ARE part of the federal vaccine mandate under OSHA jurisdiction, though technically not under the executive order.

Deleting a previous thread that was based on earlier reporting. Will also momentarily update our write-up.

Link to tweet

Here's the dreaded link to you-know-where. I urge you not to click on it.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/washington-post-reporter-postal-service-exemption-biden-vaccine-mandate

[BumRushDaShow]

1. Here's something I found published this afternoon

Postal Service Takes Wait-and-See Approach on COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates

USPS may soon have to set up widespread testing for unvaccinated staff, but agency officials do not yet know how many employees have received shots.

September 10, 2021 03:07 PM ET

Eric Katz
Senior Correspondent

The U.S. Postal Service is not committing to implementing any COVID-19 vaccine mandate—full or partial—for its workforce, with an agency spokesman saying officials will first need to see the fine print of new requirements President Biden has issued. Biden’s executive order mandating the vaccines for the federal workforce took a somewhat narrow definition of agencies that carved out USPS, which employs more than 640,000 people. The president on Thursday also announced the Labor Department would put forward a rule directing all employers with more than 100 workers to require their staff to either be vaccinated or submit to weekly COVID-19 testing.

USPS said on Friday it was still determining whether the rule would apply to the agency.“The COVID-19 vaccination requirements included in the White House executive order issued on September 9, 2021 for federal employees do not apply to the Postal Service,” said Dave Partenheimer, a USPS spokesman. “Regarding other vaccination rules expected to be issued by the federal government, the Postal Service has no comment until those rules are issued and we have had a chance to review them.”

Providing testing for unvaccinated employees could prove an onerous task for the Postal Service, which has a workforce spread across 34,000 facilities. USPS was not subject to Biden’s previous mandate for the federal workforce—which required employees to either be vaccinated or receive regular tests—meaning the mailing agency would be starting from scratch in implementing testing infrastructure. Additionally, USPS does not know who among its workforce is already vaccinated.

“We do not track that,” Partenheimer said, adding the Postal Service is encouraging all employees who wish to get vaccinated to do so. In a recent message to employees, postal management told staff that widespread vaccination for COVID-19 is a “critical tool to help stop the spread of the current COVID-19 pandemic.” The American Postal Workers Union, which represents more than 200,000 USPS employees, previously denounced vaccine mandates and said any issues related to the inoculations or testing must be negotiated with the union.


https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2021/09/postal-service-takes-wait-and-see-approach-covid-19-vaccine-mandates/185277/

Apparently they may be falling under the "businesses with more than 100 employees" part of the order (i.e., "vax up or get tested" ).