Tag Archives: OSHA

U.S. govt asks court to immediately lift stay on COVID vaccine rule

By Tom Hals

(Reuters) – The U.S. government asked a federal appeals court to immediately lift a court-ordered stay on a sweeping workplace COVID-19 vaccine rule to avoid “enormous” harm to public health, or alternatively to allow a masking-and-testing requirement, according to a court filing.

Delaying the rule by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) that requires employees to be vaccinated or tested weekly would lead to thousands of hospitalizations and deaths, the government said in a Tuesday filing with the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The administration of President Joe Biden, a Democrat, has issued several rules aimed at encouraging vaccination, although OSHA’s Nov. 5 standard is the most far-reaching.

The OSHA rule requires businesses with at least 100 employees, covering tens of millions of American workers, to comply by Jan. 4.

Although 82% of U.S. adults have gotten at least one vaccine dose, requiring shots against COVID-19 has become a divisive political issue over trade-offs between civil liberty and public health.

The rule was challenged by Republican-led states, businesses and trade groups and the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans quickly blocked it, calling it “staggeringly overbroad” and a “one-size-fits-all sledgehammer.”

After the stay was imposed by the 5th Circuit, lawsuits from around the country were transferred to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.

That has given the Biden Administration an opportunity to ask for the ruling by the 5th Circuit to be reviewed.

The government said in its filing that if the 5th Circuit’s ruling remained, it should at least be modified to allow the masking-and-testing requirement.

A modified stay would also shield employers from state and local laws banning vaccines and face coverings, the government said.

Florida is among the states that have banned businesses from requiring vaccination against COVID-19.

(Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

U.S. retail industry seeks 90-day lead time on COVID-19 rules

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Two major U.S. retail industry groups on Tuesday asked the Biden administration for at least 90 days before imposing new rules that will require employees at larger firms to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or submit to regular testing.

On Sept. 9, the White House said the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is developing an emergency temporary standard that will require all employers with 100 or more employees to ensure their workforce is fully vaccinated, or require any workers who remain unvaccinated to produce a negative COVID-19 test once a week.

The White House has said those rules will apply to more than 80 million private sector employees.

The Retail Industry Leaders Association and the National Retail Federation strongly encouraged OSHA “to provide a 90-day implementation timeline to allow retailers and other employers to create the systems necessary.”

The retail groups, which represent companies including Walmart, CVS Best Buy, Target, Kroger and Home Depot, asked how the administration will ensure adequate COVID-19 testing capacity to satisfy the “significant increase in demand.”

The groups said “there could be as many as 4 million retail workers who may need to be tested on a weekly basis.” They also asked other detailed questions like “what remedial actions can be taken in situations in which employees refuse vaccinations and testing?”

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told travel executives last week that the OSHA order is expected in “a matter of weeks. … We have been told in October.”

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

U.S. Labor Department issues emergency COVID-19 rule for healthcare workers

By Tom Hals

(Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Labor issued an emergency rule on Thursday for controlling COVID-19 and protecting workers in healthcare settings, but stopped short of extending the rule to other high-risk industries.

Hospitals, nursing homes and other health facilities will be required within 14 days to implement the rule that covers face masks, ventilation and requirements for screening and limiting patients and visitors.

The rule by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) aligns with existing non-binding guidance from the agency, but gives workers greater leverage to demand protections and provides for stricter enforcement and fines.

The agency will issue further non-binding guidance for unvaccinated workers in high-risk industries later on Thursday.

Labor unions and workplace safety advocates have pushed for the emergency temporary standard since the start of the pandemic and wanted the rules to apply to meatpacking, transport and other sectors that suffered clusters of severe COVID-19 outbreaks.

“We believe we are targeting and focusing on workers at the highest risk,” Jim Frederick, the acting director of OSHA, told Reuters.

He said OSHA is adding inspectors and will provide other high-risk sectors with education, training and assistance in complying with non-binding guidance.

With the pandemic receding, business groups could challenge the healthcare rule by arguing it should have been adopted through a slower rule-making process with public comment, rather than the emergency process used when there is a “grave danger.”

Under the Trump Administration, OSHA focused on issuing non-binding guidance which the agency said allowed for greater flexibility during a rapidly changing outbreak.

On Wednesday, Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh was criticized at a hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives by Republican lawmakers who disagreed with the need for an emergency rule.

“Let’s let people go back to work in a normal fashion,” said Rep. Tim Walberg, a Republican from Michigan.

(Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; Additional reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Bill Berkrot)

U.S. employers could mandate a COVID-19 vaccine, but are unlikely to do so: experts

By Tina Bellon

(Reuters) – Private U.S. companies have the right under the law to require employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19, but are unlikely to do so because of the risks of legal and cultural backlash, experts said.

Companies are still in the early stages of navigating access and distribution of vaccines against the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, but inoculation is considered the key to safely resume operations at crowded warehouses, factory lines and on sales floors.

“Companies have every good reason to get all of their employees vaccinated and also have an obligation to keep all employees and customers safe,” said Lawrence Gostin, a global health law professor at Georgetown University.

Gostin and five other health law experts said private companies in the United States have broad liberties to set health and safety standards, which would allow them to mandate vaccinations as a condition of employment with some exceptions.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in May said employers were allowed to compel employees to get a coronavirus test before allowing them to return to work, a decision that some experts said might be extended to vaccine mandates.

But Robert Field, a law and public health professor at Drexel University, said companies considering mandates should wait for vaccines to undergo a full-fledged regulatory review process.

“Employers are on shakier grounds because of the emergency use authorization,” Field said, adding there was no precedent for vaccine mandates during that phase.

U.S. courts that have ruled on lawsuits by healthcare workers opposing employer-mandated flu vaccines have largely sided with hospitals as long as they provided reasonable exemption policies, court records showed.

REGULATORY PATCHWORK

In Europe, companies face a patchwork of national vaccine regulation, with some countries mandating childhood vaccines, but European employers overall are unlikely to be able to mandate vaccination for staff, experts said.

In France, which in 2018 began mandating some childhood vaccines, some vaccinations are obligatory for professionals in the social and healthcare industry. President Emmanuel Macron has said a coronavirus vaccine will not be mandatory.

In Germany currently, only measles vaccines are mandatory for some employees and companies have no sufficient legal basis to order COVID-19 vaccination, said Pauline Moritz, a Frankfurt-based employment law attorney.

And in the UK, the government has no legal power to compel vaccination and employers attempting to mandate vaccines would likely confront human rights concerns, employment lawyers at Morgan Lewis wrote in a blog post.

U.S. agencies to date have not weighed in on COVID-19 vaccine mandates, but the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in the past has said employers have the right to mandate vaccines.

OSHA referred a request for comment to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which did not respond.

VACCINE MANDATES UNLIKELY

U.S. companies so far are shying away from discussing vaccine mandates, ahead of formal approval for a vaccine by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Ford Motor Co, which has ordered a dozen ultra-cold freezers to distribute vaccines to employees, said they would be made available on a voluntary basis.

A spokeswoman for Kellogg Co said the company was working with a medical expert and industry trade associations to make vaccines available to employees on a voluntary basis, in compliance with local and regional regulations.

“Companies could theoretically issue a mandate, but in the current political climate it is very unlikely they will do so,” said Peter Meyers, a law professor at George Washington University Law School. “Americans tend to shy away from mandates.”

Surveys have shown many Americans have safety concerns about a COVID vaccine, with nearly half of the 10,000 respondents polled in a September Pew research survey saying they would definitely or probably not get the vaccine.

Some experts said any vaccine mandates would prompt litigation. Cases alleging infringement on religious freedom could make it to a more conservative U.S. Supreme Court.

Vaccine mandates are common in the U.S. healthcare industry, where many hospitals require staff to take annual flu shots and all U.S. states mandate vaccines for school children.

Employees and parents can object to vaccines largely on two grounds: medical conditions that contraindicate vaccination or – depending on the U.S. state – religious or personal believes.

Some union contracts with individual employers, particularly in the healthcare industry, also prevent mandatory vaccines.

If an employee rejects vaccination on religious grounds, an employer has to make a reasonable effort to accommodate the worker, such as offering a transfer to a different department with fewer personal interactions or mandating masks, said Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, a law professor at UC Hastings.

So far two companies, Pfizer Inc and Moderna Inc, have asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for emergency use authorization of their vaccine candidates.

The chief adviser of the U.S. government’s COVID-19 vaccine program said on Tuesday that 20 million people could be vaccinated by the end of 2020, and that by the middle of 2021 most Americans will have access to highly effective vaccines.

(Reporting by Tina Bellon in New York; Additional reporting by Richa Naidu in Chicago; Editing by Joe White and Nick Zieminski)