At the request of President Joe Biden, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued an emergency temporary standard on Thursday demanding that private companies with 100 or more employees mandate the COVID-19 jab for their workers.
The rule, which is technically effective once officially posted to the federal register and enduring a public comment period, requires U.S. employers with 100 or more workers to create and enforce a COVID vaccine mandate for all employees.
Any businesses that want to give their employees the illusion of the choice to reject the shot are allowed to implement an exception policy that stipulates anyone who doesn’t get the jab must “undergo regular COVID-19 testing and wear a face covering at work in lieu of vaccination.” The government agency will not require businesses that provide the second option to their employees to pay for the testing or masks.
Businesses that do not comply with the rule by Jan. 4, which leaves two months before businesses are supposed to act on what OSHA has labeled an “emergency,” will risk fines up to $14,000 per violation. Potential violations could be reported to OSHA by tattletales.
Another month with no "emergency" regulation and now they say it won't be out until 2022. Any court should reject the idea that there is an emergency justification when the gov't can't be bothered to even issue the thing.https://t.co/9EMJRs5uQM
— Kyle Sammin (@KyleSammin) November 4, 2021
OSHA claims the rule was created for the sole purpose of “protect[ing] unvaccinated employees of large employers (100 or more employees) from the risk of contracting COVID-19 by strongly encouraging vaccination” and supersedes any state or local laws, but data clearly shows that getting the COVID-19 jab does not mean you can’t contract and spread the virus. As a matter of fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that while it’s at a much lower rate than unvaccinated cases, breakthrough cases, hospitalizations, and even deaths occur in people who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
And while OSHA says natural immunity is “an area of ongoing scientific inquiry,” the agency effectively eliminates it as a factor in virus transmission and claims that “it would be infeasible for employers to operationalize a standard” that allowed unvaccinated workers who have recovered from COVID to be exempt from the jab or testing requirements.
“OSHA determined that workers who have been infected with COVID-19 but have not been fully vaccinated still face a grave danger from workplace exposure to SARS-CoV-2,” the proposal states.
In the proposed rule, OSHA also threatens to extend the mandate requirement to smaller employers and asks for businesses that have chosen to require the shot or COVID testing to cooperate with the agency’s investigation into how to expand the rule.
“The agency is moving in a stepwise fashion on the short timeline necessitated by the danger presented by COVID-19 while soliciting stakeholder comment and additional information to determine whether to adjust the scope of the [emergency temporary standard] to address smaller employers in the future,” the rule states.
The agency also asked employers to weigh in on whether it should “impose a strict vaccination mandate (i.e., all employers required to implement mandatory vaccination policies as defined in this [emergency temporary standard]) with no alternative compliance option” and other restrictive policies that could be included in the finalized rule.
7. Social distancing, physical barriers, and further ventilation requirements.
In other words, this is only the beginning of the authoritarianism. If made permanent, the OSHA rule would be far more onerous. They could push a national vaccination AND mask mandate.— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) November 4, 2021
Some companies such as airlines already mandated the shot for their employees, but up until the rule was posted, Biden’s direction for the private-sector mandate was just an unenforceable press release.
Republican leaders and lawmakers have already threatened to push back on what they have called an “unconstitutional overreach” and danger to an economy already suffering from understaffing and a supply-chain crisis.
.@AGEricSchmitt announces coming lawsuit against new OSHA rule in advance of publication in federal register: “The federal government does not have the authority to unilaterally force private employers to mandate their employees get vaccinated or foot the bill for weekly testing"
— Bryan Lowry (@BryanLowry3) November 4, 2021
OSHA is giving employers a deadline of Jan 4 to comply with Biden's vaccine mandate, threatening thousands of $ in fines for those who defy.
This is why I introduced the NOSHA Act, to abolish OSHA and their unconstitutional overreach!https://t.co/dn2ACT4XAd #FoxBusiness
— Rep Andy Biggs (@RepAndyBiggsAZ) November 4, 2021
Conservative publication The Daily Wire, backed by the Dhillon Law Group, Inc. and Alliance Defending Freedom, also announced it would sue the federal government over the proposed rule.
