Retail industry groups are asking OSHA to address a variety of “vital concerns” in its COVID-19 vaccine rule, warning that President Joe Biden’s plan raises questions on how the agency will consider issues like employee classifications, exemptions and testing costs, and are further seeking a 90-day phase-in period to ease those challenges.
Industry attorneys say they expect OSHA’s forthcoming rule on COVID-19 vaccination to offer employers the “option” of mandating vaccines for workers rather than offering weekly tests as an alternative, among other potential details they say are likely based on statements from President Joe Biden and agency officials.
OSHA is strengthening enforcement and outreach “to better protect heat-exposed workers” as part of a larger “multi-prong” initiative from the Biden administration to combat heat-related illness, after worker-safety and environmental groups pressed the White House for action following this summer’s record-setting heat waves.
Legal scrutiny of OSHA’s pending vaccine mandate is ramping up, as Arizona’s attorney general has filed what appears to be the first suit to block the rule while unions that challenged the agency’s earlier COVID-19 standard for the healthcare sector are suspending that suit to consider how the agency’s new policy will affect it.
OSHA’s forthcoming COVID-19 vaccination rule is getting a cautious reception from labor and work-safety groups, with several saying “the devil is in the details” and urging officials to carefully balance concerns for worker safety and privacy while maintaining calls for a broader workplace health rule.
Republican governors are vowing to oppose President Joe Biden’s newly announced plan for OSHA to mandate strict COVID-19 vaccination requirements for private-sector employers, threatening court challenges and executive orders aimed at blocking any workplace vaccine requirement.
Attorneys say employers should be ready to quickly resume compliance with a host of Obama-era OSHA policies linked to its contentious electronic reporting rule, including anti-retaliation measures that barred many workplace safety incentives, as the agency prepares to propose a new version of the regulation as soon as December.
OSHA has reworked a long-standing “interpretive rule” to specify that proving whistleblower retaliation requires showing that protected activity was the “but-for” cause of an employer’s discriminatory action, based on several recent Supreme Court decisions the agency had already incorporated into less-formal guidance.
Worker-safety and environmental groups are seeking alternative paths to a comprehensive emergency temporary standard (ETS) for heat illness including a push for state-level policies, citing concerns that OSHA lacks the staff or resources to quickly craft such a rule alongside its top priority of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.
OSHA’s deputy regulatory chief told an Aug. 31 conference the agency plans to let its COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) expire after a six-month window, noting that while future developments could lead officials to reverse course, its plan “at this point” is to allow the rule to sunset before proposing a permanent disease rule.