The White House has decided to relax its vaccine mandate for federal contractors in the country. The reason for this latest development is companies are beginning to have a hard time fulfilling contract obligations, due to the vaccine order.
In a sequel guidance report given by Biden, he stated it would be up to those companies and contractors to decide what they will do with employees who do not comply with the vaccine order by December 8th, 2021.
Vaccine mandate guidelines for federal contractors offer flexibility. #vaccinemandates https://t.co/9oZ1HFAgfr pic.twitter.com/bZboYWMt5E
— CMM Online (@cmm_online) November 3, 2021
What the New Development States
According to the new guidance report about the vaccine mandate for contractors, each covered contractor has sole responsibility for their staff.
In light of this, the contractor will have to choose what happens to unvaccinated staff. To break this down, the covered contractors will decide if they want to fire their workers or not for refusing to take the vaccine.
Plus, federal contractors were given broad leeway in deciding how to enforce COVID-19 requirements for workers — a move that will extend to companies from airlines to foodservice. https://t.co/aFymLBmPJx
— AccuWeather (@accuweather) November 1, 2021
Before this, Biden signed an executive order mandating every federal worker, including federal contractors, take the jab. However, the administration has now relaxed its COVID-19 mandate for federal workers.
What Led to This New Development?
Americans are curious about the reason for Biden’s new decision. The reason is companies and contractors revolted against the earlier order given by the government to have their staff vaccinated without COVID testing exemptions.
It would be recalled Eric Hoplin (the CEO of the National Association of Wholesale Distributors) stated earlier that should Biden’s prior order be implemented, it would lead to many workers being laid off.
This would only spell further doom on the current supply chain travails.
Eric Hoplin also stated that rather than seeking extreme means of compelling companies and workers into taking the COVID vaccine, the government should work on proactive alternatives and a slight delay in the compliance period.
Contractors and companies combined made some suggestions the White House could consider. A few of those suggestions include scraping the vaccine executive order, delaying the contractor mandate, or giving testing exemptions to companies.
At the moment, some organizations are thinking of dropping off federal contracts because they do not want to lose their staff. However, if notable associations, like the American Trucking Association, should alienate themselves from federal contracts, the Armed Forces would suffer.
The year is gradually pulling closer to an end. The December 8th deadline for the taking of the vaccine will coincide with a lot of things. First of all, everyone knows the supply chain would be adversely affected at the timing of the deadline.
However, suppose this has to be combined with firing unvaccinated workers at a booming trading period of the year. In that case, this could mean a case of double jeopardy for America’s economy and the supply chain troubles.
Well, good riddance!
