WASHINGTON (Sept. 9, 2021) — President Biden has announced a new effort to combat the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. For construction business owners of 100 or more employees this may soon mean requiring vaccinations of all their workers. 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. OSHA will issue an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) to implement this requirement, which is expected to impact more than 80 million workers in the private sector. This rule is expected to require that employees be given paid time off work to get their vaccine.
"We’ve been patient. But our patience is wearing thin, and your refusal has cost all of us,” Biden said in speech on Sept. 9. "The unvaccinated minority “can cause a lot of damage, and they are.”
Additionally, the president announced that contractors that do business with the federal government must be vaccinated. 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 implementation of their previously announced vaccination requirements that cover 2.5 million people.
The announcements come as the delta variant of the coronavirus has caused a severe spike in infection rates, hospitalizations and deaths in the past month.
“We are in the tough stretch and it could last for a while,” Biden said.
Biden's recent announcements and speech cover more than just plans to promote vaccines via OSHA. The administration is also seeking to improve vaccination rates amongst healthcare workers, provide easy access to booster shots for the population as needed, ask that states require school employees to be vaccinated and more. See the full plan at whitehouse.gov.
