Readers will recall that the Biden Administration is in the process of implementing and enforcing COVID-19 vaccine mandates on employees of business owners through three different approaches - all three of which affect some portion of the ABI membership. At this point all three efforts have been temporarily stayed by federal courts for all or a portion of the states until further court action. A recap:
Mandate: Under OSHA, employees of companies with 100 or greater employees must be vaccinated or test negative weekly to be in the workplace. Status: Stayed by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals for all states and assigned to the 6th Court of Appeals for full hearing. The Biden Administration has asked the 6th Circuit to lift the stay and allow implementation.
Mandate: By Executive Order, President Biden has required that employees of federal contractors must be vaccinated.
Status: The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals has granted a stay of the Executive Order for the states of Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio within its jurisdiction. No other states are covered by this order and the mandate remains in place for the remainder of the country.
Mandate: Under the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), employees of companies receiving reimbursement from CMS must be vaccinated.
Status: The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals granted a limited stay to ten states including Iowa to suspend implementation of the mandate. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals then granted a nationwide temporary injunction.
What should affected ABI members do? Court action is difficult to predict. Any final outcome is possible. Employers should continue to at least prepare written plans on how they will comply with the mandates should they eventually be enforced. Help in doing so is available on the coronavirus page of the ABI website HERE.
