Insights
Labor & Employment Alert: Mandatory COVID-19 Vaccinations are Coming
By Christopher J. Carney on September 10, 2021
According to the Centers for Disease Control, only 53% of those individuals who are eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine are fully vaccinated. As a result, yesterday the Biden Administration announced a number of initiatives designed to address the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccine hesitancy. President Biden will be signing Executive Orders requiring all heath care workers, Executive Branch employees, and certain Federal contractors to be fully vaccinated.
In addition to the Executive Orders, President Biden has tasked the Occupational Safety and Health Administration with developing and issuing an Emergency Temporary Standard (“ETS”) requiring that employers with more than 100 employees ensure that their employees are vaccinated or test negative for COVID-19 once a week. It is estimated that this ETS will affect more than 80 million workers who remain unvaccinated.
The ETS, which is in the development phase and will be published in the “coming weeks”, will require those businesses subject to it to provide paid time off to get vaccinated and to recover from any side effects. It is expected that employees will receive 4 hours of paid time off for each dose of the vaccine if an employee is vaccinated during working hours and 8 hours of paid time off for each dose to recover from the vaccine’s side effects.
There are a number of unanswered questions such as whether the employer or employee will bear the burden of COVID-19 testing should an employee refuse to get vaccinated, how will employers verify whether employees are fully vaccinated – will employees be required to show a vaccination card or will an affidavit suffice – and will there be a period of time for employers to comply once the ETS goes into effect. To this last point, Federal employees and contractors will have 75 days to get fully vaccinated from the date President Biden signs the Executive Order. It would seem employers will have the same amount of time to comply once the ETS becomes law.
We will continue to keep you updated with what are expected to be rapid developments with this ETS.
In addition to the Executive Orders, President Biden has tasked the Occupational Safety and Health Administration with developing and issuing an Emergency Temporary Standard (“ETS”) requiring that employers with more than 100 employees ensure that their employees are vaccinated or test negative for COVID-19 once a week. It is estimated that this ETS will affect more than 80 million workers who remain unvaccinated.
The ETS, which is in the development phase and will be published in the “coming weeks”, will require those businesses subject to it to provide paid time off to get vaccinated and to recover from any side effects. It is expected that employees will receive 4 hours of paid time off for each dose of the vaccine if an employee is vaccinated during working hours and 8 hours of paid time off for each dose to recover from the vaccine’s side effects.
There are a number of unanswered questions such as whether the employer or employee will bear the burden of COVID-19 testing should an employee refuse to get vaccinated, how will employers verify whether employees are fully vaccinated – will employees be required to show a vaccination card or will an affidavit suffice – and will there be a period of time for employers to comply once the ETS goes into effect. To this last point, Federal employees and contractors will have 75 days to get fully vaccinated from the date President Biden signs the Executive Order. It would seem employers will have the same amount of time to comply once the ETS becomes law.
We will continue to keep you updated with what are expected to be rapid developments with this ETS.
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