Occupational Safety and Health Administration formally abandons Joe Biden’s coronavirus vaccine mandate.
QUICK FACTS:
- The Biden administration is withdrawing its requirement that large employers mandate workers be vaccinated or regularly tested, the Labor Department said on Tuesday, according to The New York Times.
- “The withdrawal is effective January 26, 2022,” OSHA announced.
- The Labor Department recognized what most employers and industry experts said after the court’s ruling, namely that the emergency temporary standard could not be revived after the Supreme Court blocked it earlier this month.
- “It’s their admitting what everyone had been saying, which is that the rule is dead,” said Brett Coburn, a lawyer at Alston & Bird.
- OSHA’s mandate, issued Nov 5, would have affected roughly 84 million workers across the country.
- the Biden administration acknowledged what most businesses expected: the plan to make companies mandate vaccines-or-tests is over.
WHAT ELSE OSHA SAID:
- “Although OSHA is withdrawing the vaccination and testing ETS as an enforceable emergency temporary standard, the agency is not withdrawing the ETS as a proposed rule. The agency is prioritizing its resources to focus on finalizing a permanent COVID-19 Healthcare Standard,” the agency said, reports Breitbart, emphasizing that it “strongly encourages vaccination of workers against the continuing dangers posed by COVID-19 in the workplace.”
BACKGROUND:
- The Supreme Court’s decision, which was 6 to 3, said OSHA did not have the authority to require workers to be vaccinated for coronavirus or tested weekly, NYT notes.
- The court described the agency’s approach as “a blunt instrument.”
- Those legal proceedings will now be dropped.
