Business Perspective
Bidens workplace vaccine mandate seems controversial now but Americans will come around in the end
The mandate requiring private-sector employers with more than 100 employees to ensure their workers are fully vaccinated has provoked extreme reactions. It reminds me of an earlier workplace controversy, which was resolved in the end.
By Karla L. Miller
Columnist
September 16, 2021 at 7:00 a.m. EDT
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Under the executive order, federal employers and contractors, as well as health-care providers that treat Medicare and Medicaid patients, will be required to ensure that all their employees are fully vaccinated.
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In the most controversial piece of his plan, Biden has further directed the Labor Department to issue an emergency rule requiring private-sector employers with more than 100 employees to ensure that their workers are either fully vaccinated (with the usual exceptions for religious and disability reasons), or undergoing weekly testing for the coronavirus.
Bidens plan gives teeth to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which
has been under fire for failing to issue and enforce coronavirus-specific safety rules to protect workers during the pandemic especially front-line employees in health care, food supply, meatpacking, warehousing, and other essential services.
Up until now, masks, physical distancing, barriers, sanitation, contact tracing and other protective measures have been largely left to the discretion of state and local governments and individual employers.
Although OSHA did implement an
emergency temporary standard in June establishing
rules for health-care employers, its protections for workers in other industries have been limited mainly to
firmly worded recommendations.
Bidens workplace vaccination mandate authorizes OSHA to upgrade those recommendations to requirements, although its not yet clear how OSHA will enforce them or whether they will withstand legal challenges.
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By Karla Miller
Karla L. Miller offers weekly advice on workplace dramas and traumas. You can send her questions at work.advice.wapo@gmail.com. Twitter
https://twitter.com/KarlaAtWork