Legal Update provided by the Cicotte Law Firm:
Today OSHA issued the Emergency Temporary Standards (ETS) that President Biden in August directed it to prepare. This is the anticipated vaccine mandate for large employers, with 100 or more employees. All references to employers in this post refer to large employers.
Employers generally will be required to comply with the ETS by December 5, however compliance with the weekly testing requirement for non-vaccinated employees will be required by January 4, 2022.
Under the voluminous requirements, employers must:
Develop, implement and enforce a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy, or adopt a policy requiring employees to choose to either be vaccinated or undergo regular COVID-19 testing and wear a face covering at work.
Provide paid time to workers to get vaccinated and allow paid leave to recover from any side effects.
Determine the vaccination status of each employee, obtain acceptable proof of vaccination status from vaccinated employees and maintain records and a roster of each employee's vaccination status.
Require employees to provide prompt notice when they test positive for COVID-19 or receive a COVID-19 diagnosis. Employers must then remove the employee from the workplace, regardless of vaccination status; employers must not allow them to return to work until they meet required criteria.
Ensure each worker who is not fully vaccinated is tested for COVID-19 at least weekly (if the worker is in the workplace at least once a week) or within 7 days before returning to work (if the worker is away from the workplace for a week or longer).
Ensure that, in most circumstances, each employee who has not been fully vaccinated wears a face covering when indoors or when occupying a vehicle with another person for work purposes.
Employers are NOT required to pay for testing or to pay for face coverings.
A 28 minute training video for employers is available here:
Templates for the mandatory policy are available here, along with FAQs and related compliance material:
The ETS is 490 pages long, and is available here:
Should you or your company require assistance with these new requirements, or with any other employee benefit, ERISA, or employment matter please contact the firm's managing partner, George Cicotte, by email at george@cicottelaw.com or by phone at 877-783-6699.