On Saturday, OSHA delayed the monitoring and enforcement deadline for the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate for private enterprises.
This comes a day after the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals dissolved the 5th Circuit’s hold on the mandate. In a declaration, OSHA said to give employers enough time to comply.
OSHA confirmed it will not issue fines for failure to comply with the ETS requirements before January 10.
Early prediction: the split Sixth Circuit decision affirming Biden's OSHA mandate will be overturned by the en banc Sixth Circuit.
— Robert Barnes (@barnes_law) December 18, 2021
OSHA Pleased with Ruling
The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals dissolved the 5th Circuit’s hold on the Biden administration’s vaccination requirement (ETS) on private employers on Friday. Judge Joan Larsen dissented.
OSHA requires all organizations with 100 or more employees to undergo COVID-19 immunization, weekly testing, and masking. This is not the first time the 5th Circuit challenged the ETS.
The Fifth Circuit held that private, state, and employer burdens would be severe, owing to regulatory costs, loss of fundamental freedom, and encroachment into state police power.
In her dissenting judgment, Judge Joan Larsen argues the obligation is intended to safeguard unvaccinated people. The rule assumes immunizations function.
So, according to OSHA, the regulation isn’t about safeguarding the vaccinated because working alongside non-vaccinated people poses no “grave hazard.”
Petitioners claim the requirement infringes on the nondelegation concept, the Commerce Clause, and procedural due process. Some claim it breaches their constitutionally secured religious liberty and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, according to Larsen.
To end the stay, they must determine none of these challenges will succeed. OSHA saw a concern. According to Larsen, the law compels OSHA to prove the measure it chose—the countrywide vaccine-or-test mandate—was ‘necessary’ to tackle the problem.
‘For The Greater Good’
Dissenters compare the ETS to a pizzeria mandating all employees wear oven gloves for safety. It says OSHA might have made a more targeted mandate, with a requirement for the most vulnerable employees or an exception for the least susceptible.
The agency’s urgency claim sounds hollow. It took nearly two years from the start of the epidemic to issue its vaccinate-or-test requirement. The agency did not explain why it could not have investigated more precise procedures at the time.
A brief look at the data raises an eyebrow. A vaccinated worker is not at great risk, but an unprotected worker is. Unvaccinated people aged 18 to 29 die at approximately the same rate as vaccinated adults aged 50 to 64, according to the data.
Unvaccinated 18-year-olds are as in danger as vaccinated 50-year-olds. A youngster (18) is in dire danger, whereas a senior (50) is not. Either of these findings is a concern for OSHA’s regulation.
No one knows how many workers in the US have caught COVID-19 while at work, according to OSHA. Larsen adds the study found no specific rate or danger of workplace exposure to COVID-19.
Biden's vaccine-or-test rule for 84 million workers is back after court lifts stay https://t.co/MQAjr9936V
— NPR Business (@nprbusiness) December 18, 2021
OSHA has never before attempted to impose a lasting and substantially intrusive fix on the public, but that’s what OSHA did. Unlike this regulation, the effects of a vaccine do not expire in six months.
Dissidents claim ETS breaches the Major Questions Doctrine. Larsen claims OSHA has never adopted such a broad emergency regulation. Each of these rule’s few predecessors addressed specific industry issues.
