Public employees in states that don’t have their own safety agency—including Texas, Florida, and Ohio—won’t be covered by the federal mandate, which otherwise applies to just private employers.
Several Republican states’ attorneys general have vowed to sue in an effort to block the initiative.
The simultaneous OSHA and CMS mandates, announced about 10 months after the first effective Covid-19 vaccines became available, follow earlier mandates pertaining to health-care workers and employees of federal contractors. In the aggregate, two-thirds of all U.S. workers will now be covered by at least one of those vaccination requirements, according to the administration.
Confronted with resistance to inoculation, particularly in southern states and often egged on by opposing politicians, President Joe Biden on Sept. 9 ordered the federal workplace safety agency to develop its emergency temporary standard. To do that, OSHA bypassed meetings with employer and worker representatives.
Instead, the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs scheduled more than 100 meetings with companies, business groups, unions, and others. During those sessions, employers often asked for enforcement of the standard to be delayed until after the holiday shopping season to give employers adequate time to have compliance programs in place to allow workers up to six week to be considered “fully vaccinated.”
Earlier this year, it took OSHA and the Biden administration five months to issue the emergency temporary standard for health-care facilities where workers treat Covid-19 patients. That standard was enacted June 21.
The OSHA standards can last for six months after which they must be replaced by a permanent regulation.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.