Posted on 09/15/2021 5:33:25 AM PDT by Kaslin
The White House says a COVID-19 vaccine mandate that President Joe Biden plans to impose on private employers, which "will impact over 80 million workers," is all about "Vaccinating the Unvaccinated." But officially, that mandate is aimed at protecting workplace safety, and the difference between those two descriptions could make it vulnerable to the flood of litigation it will provoke.
A month after he was elected, Biden called vaccination against COVID-19 a "patriotic duty," but said, "I don't think it should be mandatory." On July 23, White House press secretary Jen Psaki reiterated that position, saying it's "not the role of the federal government" to require vaccination.
A week later, Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, insisted "there will be no federal (vaccination) mandate." Last month, Anthony Fauci, Biden's top medical adviser, agreed that "you're not going to get mandates centrally from the federal government."
If you are determined to reconcile those assurances with the rule that Biden announced last week, which applies to all businesses with 100 or more employees, you could note that it does not technically require people to be vaccinated since they can submit to weekly COVID-19 testing instead. But the choice between those two options, especially if employees have to foot the bill for testing, is likely to encourage vaccination, which is what Biden wants.
The problem is that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration -- the agency that Biden has charged with imposing the vaccination/testing rule -- does not have broad authority to fight epidemics or promote public health. Its mission is limited to protecting employees from workplace hazards.
Ordinarily, it takes years for OSHA to finalize new regulations. But the approach Biden has chosen, an "emergency temporary standard," allows OSHA to bypass the usual rule-making process: It can issue a rule that takes effect immediately without advance notice, public comment or hearings.
Although the ETS option is undeniably convenient, it requires a special justification. OSHA must "determine" that its ETS is "necessary" to protect employees from a "grave danger" caused by "new hazards" or by "exposure to substances or agents determined to be toxic or physically harmful."
Those assessments are subject to judicial review, and OSHA's track record in defending ETSs suggests why it rarely takes this route. Six of the nine emergency standards that OSHA issued between 1971 and 1983 were challenged in court; those challenges were partly or fully successful in all but one case.
On July 21, when OSHA published an ETS requiring specific COVID-19 precautions in health care settings, it was the first time the agency had attempted an emergency standard in 38 years. It was also the first time OSHA had cited the danger posed by a communicable disease as the justification for an ETS.
Whether COVID-19 constitutes a "grave danger" to employees depends on conditions that vary widely from one workplace to another. The danger is greater, for instance, when work requires a lot of close interaction (as in meatpacking plants), when the vaccination rate is low, or when many employees are relatively old or have preexisting medical conditions that make them especially vulnerable to COVID-19.
In a workplace where the employees are young and healthy, by contrast, their risk of dying from COVID-19 is very low even if they are not vaccinated. And if someone's work does not entail close contact with fellow employees, his risk of catching COVID-19 from unvaccinated colleagues may be negligible or nonexistent.
Considerations such as these also factor into the question of whether OSHA's ETS is "necessary." It would be hard to justify a rule that made no exceptions for employees who work from home, for example, or for employees who are resistant to COVID-19 because of their immune responses to prior infections.
A broad rule with no exceptions better serves Biden's goal of increasing the overall vaccination rate. But it will also be harder to defend in court.
In a word, no.
What I’ve been hearing is similar cases have been heard in the past and the mandate is always struck down.
1. Who has the legal standing to challenge this OSHA mandate? The answer to this may very well be: the employers, not the workers.
2. How many employers will actually challenge this mandate in court? I suspect the answer will be: very few.
A little history of the vaccinations across time in the USA.
https://www.governing.com/now/the-long-history-of-mandated-vaccines-in-the-united-states
Umm, since SCOTUS refused to act in Jan to provide a hearing on corruption charges, who still believes that the US still has a judiciary that protects the Const and human rights?
Considering a judge in NY struck down the vaccine mandate for NY health workers yesterday, i say the WH is in for a humiliating defeat.
NON-COMPLIANCE will happen on such a large scale the rule if it's even passed years from now, will fail.
PERIOD
Business Insider has also published an excellent article that says large corporations are taking a "wait and see" attitude to see what the rule will look like. One of my sons works for FedEx. He's already said that FedEx won't comply because they simply can't. Their workforce is so transitory it's impossible. They don't even enforce the mask mandate for their workforce today. The signs on the doors saying "masks required" aren't enforced, they're there for show.
If/when that rule gets passed, it'll be virtually MEANINGLESS. This is all for show, for Biden. Like everything else Democrats do, it's symbolism. Not substance.
Democrats are PANICKING as 2021 starts coming to a close and the focus shifts quickly on the 2022 mid-term elections. Polling shows that more than 60% of the public overwhelmingly OPPOSES vaccination mandates. Biden's public support is down to 36% according to Trafalgar group and it's still cratering.
Democrats have blown this badly. Biden is taking his direction from someone, he's not making these decisions. He's an empty vessel. We all know this. Whoever is giving Biden his directions and making these decisions is blowing it badly. One bad decision after another, after another.
Afghanistan. Economy. Extending (illegally) no-eviction orders. Mishandling the economy. Blowing up the national debt. Vaccine mandate. And wait until the 3.5 TRILLION spending bill goes forward when 58% of the American Public (Rasmussen polling) OPPOSE IT since it contains massive tax hikes for anyone making over $50,000 per year and that includes families. Add to that, rampant food and energy inflation here in America along with increasing costs (double digits) for everything else.
Your posting history shows you have a record of looking at individual issues and making sweeping conclusions about them and you do not look at the bigger picture of what's going on here in America.
The Democrats are playing a game of just trying to knock one set of bad news off the front page with something else, hoping the American public will simply forget. The problem is, every decision they make for Biden just gets worse and worse.
Some Americans may have short memories. The rest of us certainly do not.
Don't. Doubt. Me. On. This.
The purpose of Biden’s COVID nonsense is to knock the ongoing humanitarian and geo-political disaster in Afghanistan out of the news.
It’s working.
Biden’s vaccine mandate against private employers and employees is an authoritarian abuse of power. But so are the orders of Republican governors which ban private employers from requiring that employees be vaccinated. The difference is that Biden’s abuse of power is outlawed by the highest law in the United States.
You are correct on both counts.
From experience, even when a company wins against regulatory agencies, they lose.
If you are big enough, you can buy them off (ADM) or use political pressure. But you can’t fight them in court because they will just come back.
Flip side to this is they may determine that even employers have no standing, since it is to protect employees, and employees have no standing since it is to protect them and they would not be harmed.
Remember Obama care? It was supposed to be a slam dunk repeal.
Never happened. Became a tax. Now the law of the land.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out. No OSHA reporting of vaccine injuries. Yes OSHA mandating of vaccines (through compelled testing of unvaxxed). It’s a one-sided look at “harm”, and questionable reduction in “grave risk.”
The judgge didn’t strike down the mandate; he ruled that the state could not ignore religious objections.
Problem is with this argument
State or local legislative action imposed these mandated vaccinations. Never been done by Federals or State executive order
This is a totally new type of vaccination process. Comparing it to previous vaccination programs is an appels to oranges comparison
This new vaccine process has been pushed thru with all medical and legal, safeguards removed.
Third, the prior vaccinations required equal potection under the law. This EO carves out broad exceptions for illegal aliens and employers with less thn 100 employees.
This cannot past the test of a pressing public emergency requiring sweeping emergency powers when it is to be selectively applied.
They want weekly testing? Fine. For now. We've been told if/when we are officially directed - but legal and contracts have been explicit: don't do anything yet - that time needed for testing will be chargeable time. If I'm on the clock, then mileage over and above my normal commute is also chargeable. Given the distance to the nearest free testing site relative to my home and work, I'll lose an hour a week. So my productivity to the contract will take a 2.5% hit.
I'll get some time to enjoy my first cup of coffee while driving through a rural setting and listening to satellite radio. I'll take that - for now. But I am officially looking for another job with less mickey mouse BS.
Obamacare was legislative action
This is a Biden Executive Order
2 totally different things.
SC struck down the Biden EO banning drilling leases on public lands.
So yes, we still have a SC
No the employers have standing since they are being forced by the EO to be the record keeper and enforcement arm.
I think we need to pray hard these mandates are struck down.
“the WH is in for a humiliating defeat”
Local conservative radio the other day had a lawyer on stating bidens whole speech was nothing more than a bluff. They know its unconstitutional...just hoping people will get jabbed because he says its a mandate.
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