Vaccine mandate effective today unless high court steps in

The Biden administration’s vaccine-or-test mandate for employers with 100 or more employees is scheduled to take effect today unless the U.S. Supreme Court halts enforcement.

Legal Challenge: The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Friday in a legal challenge against the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s emergency temporary standard implementing the mandate, which says covered employers must require their employees to be vaccinated or tested weekly.

Court Skepticism: The court’s conservative majority expressed skepticism that OSHA has the legal authority to issue the broad mandate for larger employers, distinguishing it from a separate vaccine requirement for health-care employees.

Current Status: After a federal appeals court last month reversed a separate court’s stay of enforcement, OSHA has said on its website that it will not issue:

• Citations for noncompliance with any requirements of the emergency temporary standard before Jan. 10. This means covered employers should determine the vaccination status of their employees, require unvaccinated employees to wear face coverings in the workplace, and institute the written policy required by the ETS by that date.

• Citations for noncompliance with the standard’s testing requirements before Feb. 9, so long as employers exercise reasonable, good-faith efforts to comply.

Resources: ICBA offers a summary of the employer vaccine mandate. Additional resources are available on ICBA’s Pandemic Response webpage.