WASHINGTON — People who work for companies with 100 or more employees must be fully vaccinated by Jan. 4 or undergo weekly testing for COVID-19, according to final rules announced Thursday by the Biden administration.
The rule is expected to impact 84 million workers nationwide, the White House estimates. Workers will be considered fully vaccinated when they've received either two doses of Pfizer or Moderna or one dose of Johnson & Johnson.
The federal rule will not require businesses to provide or pay for tests for workers who choose not to get vaccinated, though employers may be required to pay for testing because of "other laws" or collective bargaining agreements, according to a White House fact sheet.
Businesses will be required to provide paid time off for employees to get vaccinated and to recover if they get sick from a vaccine shot. Unvaccinated employees won't be allowed to work if they test positive for the virus and will be required to wear a mask while at work even if they test negative.
"Higher vaccination rates protect our workers, reduce hospitalizations and deaths," a senior administration official told reporters Wednesday night. "This is good for workers, and, importantly, this is good for the economy."
There will be a 30-day window for employers to implement the policy once the final rule is published in the Federal Register later this week.
The rule for large businesses, issued by the Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration, will align with a similar rule issued by the Department of Health and Human Services that requires workers at health care facilities participating in Medicare and Medicaid to be fully vaccinated. The White House estimates the rule will impact 17 million workers at around 76,000 health care facilities around the country.
The administration is also moving the deadline for federal contractors from Dec. 8 to Jan. 4 to align with the other rules to simplify the transition for companies that have employees falling under multiple rules, the officials said.
OSHA will enforce the vaccine-or-test mandate by targeting efforts on workplaces that have received complaints and will also have planned inspections to make sure businesses are complying, officials said, which is similar to how the agency enforces other rules.
Any penalties would depend on the scope and severity of non-compliance, the officials said. For example, a standard penalty for a single violation would be nearly $14,000. For a "willful violation" of the rules, the amount would jump to nearly $137,000.
Attorneys general from 18 states filed three lawsuits last week against the vaccine mandate for federal contractors and asked a federal judge to block the implementation of the rule. Multiple states have also pledged to challenge the rule for large businesses when it is issued.
Administration officials argued Wednesday evening that the Department of Labor has "broad" authority to issue the mandate under safety rules that allow the agency to issue new standards in emergencies when workers are "subjected to a grave danger."
"A virus that has killed more than 745,000 Americans, with more than 70,000 new cases per day currently, is clearly a health hazard that poses a grave danger to workers," another administration official told reporters.
Many Republicans in Congress have also argued that President Joe Biden is overstepping his authority by issuing the mandate, including Rep. John Moolenaar of Midland, who sits on the powerful House Appropriations Committee.
Moolenaar introduced a bill on Tuesday that would bar the Department of Labor, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education from using federal funds to administer COVID-19 vaccine requirements. The bill is co-sponsored by 17 Republicans on the committee.
"There's simply nothing in the Constitution that allows the federal government to impose this mandate on private businesses and my bill will cut off funding for the Department of Labor to enforce it," Moolenaar said in a statement.
"Businesses are struggling with supply chain disruptions, labor shortages, and higher costs for gas and electricity. The last thing businesses need is the federal government burdening them with more costs and making it harder for them to retain and hire workers."
