It is settled law that cities and states can require employees to receive vaccines during health emergencies. However, the federal government has no authority to enforce or order a national vaccine mandate. Yay for federalism.
President Biden supports the Pentagon’s plan to require all U.S. military members to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has set a mid-September deadline to vaccinate all troops, which he said may be moved up if the FDA gives final approval or if the rise in infection rates accelerates.
Companies do have the right in just about every state to require employees to be vaccinated. Nine states limit city and state governments from requiring vaccinations, but employees are considered at-will in most Republican, business-friendly states. It seems the coin has now flipped, with Democrats buddying up to big business and letting them be the strong arm in getting shots into employee arms, while Republicans have been more reticent to push the issue.
But the federal government is always best at undermining its own initiatives. In this case, it’s OSHA’s turn to be a regulatory fly in the ointment. Back in April, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued a FAQ dealing with employer-required vaccination. If an employer, like United Airlines, makes vaccines mandatory, then any adverse reaction to the vaccine becomes a “work-related” illness. This means it’s a reportable event on the employer’s OSHA 300 log.
If you require your employees to be vaccinated as a condition of employment (i.e., for work-related reasons), then any adverse reaction to the COVID-19 vaccine is work-related. The adverse reaction is recordable if it is a new case under 29 CFR 1904.6 and meets one or more of the general recording criteria in 29 CFR 1904.7.
However, the agency now states it will not enforce its own recording requirements. For now. Nobody competes with the government in asking people to do something, threatening them for doing it, then saying the threat is only a joke (only later to recant that last bit).
https://www.thefirsttv.com/feds-want-companies-to-force-vaccines-then-punish-them-for-it-steve-berman/
