Friday, December 17th the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals lifted a stay on the Biden administration rule - requiring workers at companies with 100 or more employees to be vaccinated against Covid or undergo weekly testing.
The rule, first blocked on November 5th, just one day after it was formally issued by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, is back on beginning on January 4th.
A three-judge panel of the 6th Circuit indicated that the cost of delaying implementation of the rule to be comparatively high. “An important step in curtailing the transmission of a deadly virus that has killed over 800,000 people in the United States.”
The rule impacts an estimated 84 million workers.
Simpara expects that the Supreme Court will eventually weigh in however, it is unlikely to do so prior to the go-live date of January 4th. Simpara has rolled out vaccination tracking software for free to all of our employer clients and will support configuration and implementation to meet the federal requirements.
UPDATED DEADLINES
OSHA has updated the ETS website to say that they will exercise enforcement discretion with respect to the compliance dates of the OSHA ETS. To provide employers with sufficient time to come into compliance, they will not issue citations for noncompliance with any requirements of the ETS before January 10, 2022 and will not issue citations for noncompliance with testing requirements before February 9, 2022, so long as an employer is exercising reasonable, good faith efforts to come into compliance with the OSHA ETS. This kicks the prior deadlines of December 5, 2022 and January 4, 2022 out approximately 5 weeks. See updated deadlines below based on OSHA’s statement regarding compliance:
| REQUIREMENT | WILL NOT ISSUE CITATIONS FOR NONCOMPLIANCE BEFORE JANUARY 10, 2022 (Previously Dec 5, 2021) | WILL NOT ISSUE CITATIONS FOR NONCOMPLIANCE BEFORE FEBRUARY 9, 2022 (Previously Jan 4, 2021) |
|---|---|---|
| Establish policy on vaccination (paragraph (d)) | ||
| Determine vaccination status of each employee, obtain acceptable proof of vaccination, maintain records and roster of vaccination status (paragraph (e)) | ||
| Provide support for employee vaccination (paragraph (f)) | ||
| Ensure employees who are not fully vaccinated are tested for COVID-19 at least weekly (if in the workplace at least once a week) or within 7 days before returning to work (if away from the workplace for a week or longer) (paragraph (g)) | ||
| Require employees to promptly provide notice of positive COVID-19 test or COVID-19 diagnosis (paragraph (h)) | ||
| Remove any employee who received positive COVID-19 test or COVID-19 diagnosis (paragraph (h)) | ||
| Ensure employees who are not fully vaccinated wear face coverings when indoors or when occupying a vehicle with another person for work purposes (paragraph | ||
| Provide each employee information about the ETS; workplace policies and procedures; vaccination efficacy, safety and benefits; protections against retaliation and discrimination; and laws that provide for criminal penalties for knowingly supplying false documentation (paragraph (j)) | ||
| Report work-related COVID-19 fatalities to OSHA within 8 hours and work-related COVID-19 in-patient hospitalizations within 24 hours (paragraph (k)) | ||
| Make certain records available (paragraph (l)) |
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