The Biden Administration Can Mandate Vaccinations for All Workers
By Joel D. Joseph, author of Employees' Rights in Plain English.
President Biden is trying to persuade employers and governors to require citizens to get vaccinated. Instead, the president can and should be mandating vaccinations through his administration. For example, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is a regulatory agency within the U.S. Department of Labor. The administrator for OSHA is the Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health. OSHA's administrator answers to the Secretary of Labor, who is a member of the President's cabinet. OSHA can mandate that 150 million workers be vaccinated or lose their jobs.
OSHA's mission is to ensure that employees work in a safe and healthful workplace by setting and enforcing standards. President Biden can direct OSHA to impose a vaccination mandate. Employers nationwide must comply with all applicable OSHA standards.
In addition, employers must comply with the "General Duty" clause of the Occupational Safety and Health law, which requires employers to keep their workplace "free of serious recognized hazards." Covid 19 is certainly a recognized hazard to the health of employees. For example, Covid 19 spread rapidly through many meat and poultry processing plants at the beginning of the pandemic. The CDC reported in July of 2020, that "Among 23 states reporting Covid-19 outbreaks in meat and poultry processing facilities, 16,233 cases in 239 facilities occurred, including 86 COVID-19-related deaths. Among cases with race and ethnicity reported, 87% occurred among racial or ethnic minorities. Commonly implemented interventions included worker screening, source control measures (universal face coverings), engineering controls (physical barriers), and infection prevention measures (additional hand hygiene stations)."
The federal government can also mandate that anyone, not just employees, entering a federal building show proof of inoculation. That would include veteran's facilities, the National Institutes of Health, Social Security Administration offices, the Archives, federal courthouses and post offices.
Many of the meat processing plants have independently required their workforce to be vaccinated. A growing list of corporations are now requiring workers to be vaccinated. Walmart, the nation's largest employer, requires workers to have a Covid vaccine, as does Disney, Google, Facebook, Blackrock, Morgan Stanley, the Washington Post, Lyft, Uber, Twitter, Delta and United Airlines and Goldman Sachs. The federal government should lead the parade, not follow it.
State OSHAs
Twenty-states have their own occupational safety and health programs that must be as strong as the federal standards. Unfortunately, states with the highest Covid infections, Texas, Florida, Louisiana and Missouri, do not have state OSHA programs. California's OSHA program could also mandate vaccines for all employees in the nation's largest state. The other states with occupational health administrations can and should mandate vaccines for all workers.
Other Federal Power to Require Immunizations
The Federal Aviation Administration can mandate that anyone boarding an airplane in the United States be vaccinated and show proof. The Defense Department can mandate that all service members and employees be vaccinated. DoD has more than two million members of the armed forces and and a million or more civilian personnel. The Transportation Department can mandate that passengers on trains and buses must be vaccinated and present proof.
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