Details & Implementation Date Await OSHA Emergency Rulemaking
Last week, President Biden recently directed the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to draft a rule requiring companies with 100 or more employees to either:
- ensure that their workforce is “fully vaccinated” or
- require any workers who remain unvaccinated to produce a negative test for Covid-19 at least once a week.
This mandate is part of the President’s overall COVID-19 Action Plan announced on the same day.
New Jersey new car dealers have asked how the mandate will affect their operations and the answer is “we don’t know yet.” First, the mandate will not become effective until OSHA develops an Emergency Technical Standard (ETS) to implement the President’s directive. Secondly, exactly how OSHA will require employers, like dealerships, to calculate the 100 employee threshold is unclear. Each individual business? All related business entities? Part-timers?
There are many unanswered and it is expected that the ETS will address issues, and others, such as:
- how dealers will be required to determine who is and who is NOT vaccinated;
- what types of tests will be required;
- whether covered dealers will also be required to provide employees with paid time off to get vaccinated and/or to recover from any vaccination side-effects
NJ CAR will update dealers as soon as OSHA issues the ETS.