President Biden’s Vaccine Mandate for Large Employers
From the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
In September, President Biden issued executive orders (EOs)—a summary of which can be found here regarding new policies to combat the COVID virus.
On Tuesday, October 12th, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) sent the Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) to the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), which will require employers with at least 100 employees to ensure their employees are vaccinated or that they submit a negative COVID test on a weekly basis.
The specifics of the ETS or how long it’s expected to remain at OIRA have not been released, but it could take effect within a week.
The ETS will take effect once published in the Federal Register—at which point it will also be open for comments. Under the OSH Act, the ETS will remain in place for six months. After the six months, OSHA can either replace it with a permanent standard that reflects the comments or discontinue the standard altogether. At this time, we expect that the ETS will require employers to provide some paid time off for employees to get vaccinated or to recover from getting vaccinated—though the specificities are unknown.
As more information becomes available on the ETS, this post will be updated.