Biden Administration to Mandate Vaccines for Federal and Large Private-Sector Employees

On September 9, President Biden announced a new federal mandate requiring COVID-19 vaccines for all federal government employees and federal contractors. He also ordered the Department of Labor to issue an emergency order requiring businesses with more than 100 employees to ensure their workers are vaccinated or tested on a weekly basis.

Agencies with 100+ employees should begin assessing their vaccination messaging plans for their employees. Employees will get paid time off to get vaccinated and recover from the vaccine, although it’s not yet clear whether employers may be able to claim refundable tax credits to reimburse them for the paid time off. The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 already allows businesses with fewer than 500 employees to do this, but this law sunsets on September 30, 2021.

Once Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) drafts an “emergency temporary standard” and a White House regulatory office reviews it, officials said the agency would begin enforcing the rules: collecting reports of violations and sending out inspectors who will be empowered to impose $13,650 fines for violations and up to $136,500 for those that are willful or repeated.

As part of the rulemaking, OSHA must sort through a number of practical questions such as who pays for the testing and what kinds of tests are acceptable. Once the rule is published in the Federal Register, employers are likely to have at least a few weeks to comply before OSHA begins enforcement, though they may have to put forth a policy even sooner.