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Certain Businesses May Soon Be Required to Mandate COVID Vaccines

Businesses with 100 employees or more may soon be required to mandate employee vaccines, according to President Biden’s newly released COVID-19 Action Plan ("Plan").  If the new rules are enacted, businesses could also be required to provide paid time off for employees to get vaccinated and, in some cases, require masks in the workplace. 

According to the Plan, The Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is developing a rule 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 test result on at least a weekly basis before coming to work. OSHA will issue an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) to implement this requirement. This requirement will impact over 80 million workers in private sector businesses with 100+ employees.

The President has already announced vaccination requirements for the federal government in July and called on the private sector to do more to encourage vaccination as well.  The President also signed an Executive Order directing that this standard be extended to employees of contractors that do business with the federal government. As part of this effort, the Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Indian Health Service, and the National Institute of Health will complete the implementation of their previously announced vaccination requirements that cover 2.5 million people.
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