The Supreme Court has reinstated a nationwide stay of OSHA’s emergency temporary standard (ETS) for COVID-19 vaccination, holding that challengers to the rule are “likely to succeed on the merits” of their claims because the rule is broad enough to qualify as a “public health” mandate rather than an occupational standard.
Observers on all sides expect the Supreme Court to stay implementation of OSHA’s COVID-19 vaccine-or-testing standard in the coming days, leaving many employers uncertain on how to move forward after its first compliance deadline arrived on Jan. 10, especially as OSHA has yet to act on requests for extensions -- including from the Postal Service.
Conservative Supreme Court justices appeared to doubt OSHA’s authority to issue its COVID-19 vaccine-or-testing emergency temporary standard (ETS), with several questioning whether Congress could have foreseen situations like the current pandemic when it wrote the OSH Act, and others asking if the standard is truly necessary to fight the coronavirus.
State and national labor groups are asking a federal appeals court for an order that would force OSHA to reinstate its COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) for healthcare workers and quickly enact a permanent rule for the sector, teeing up what could be the first appellate decision on the agency’s ability to extend the six-month emergency regulations.
As the Supreme Court prepares to hear oral argument in challenges to OSHA’s COVID-19 vaccine-or-test emergency temporary standard (ETS) and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) mandate for health workers, legal experts say its decision could set new precedent curbing OSHA and other agencies’ regulatory authority.
The Department of Labor’s (DOL) Office of Inspector General (OIG) is beginning an audit of OSHA’s response to a rise in “severe” worker injuries at retailers’ warehouse facilities that the watchdog says is a “consequence” of the COVID-19 pandemic, following months of claims by labor groups that the facilities have failed to provide accident protections.
OSHA has released a new regulatory interpretation letter that says employers may allow workers who maintain facial hair because of a disability or closely-held religious belief to use loose-fitting powered air-purifying respirators (PAPRs) as alternatives to fitted N95 masks to protect against COVID-19 exposure.
OSHA is providing new guidance for employers to review workers’ self-administered COVID-19 tests under its pandemic emergency temporary standard (ETS), warning that while such tests can satisfy the rule’s requirement for weekly testing of unvaccinated employees they must be either read or observed by a third party.
OSHA has confirmed that it is withdrawing most of its COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) for healthcare facilities but says it still plans a permanent rulemaking for the sector and will continue enforcement action in the interim under the OSH Act’s general duty clause.
The Supreme Court announced Dec. 22 that it will hear oral argument Jan. 7 in litigation over both OSHA’s vaccine-or-test emergency temporary standard (ETS) for large employers and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) vaccine mandate for many health workers, linking the two high-profile challenges to federal pandemic powers.