ARTICLE
Yesterday afternoon, President Biden announced that he is directing OSHA to develop a rule that will require all employers with 100 or more employees to ensure their workforce is fully vaccinated or require any workers who remain unvaccinated to produce a negative test result on at least a weekly basis before coming to work. OSHA will issue an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) to implement the requirement. Once the ETS is issued, it will go into effect immediately. As part of this mandate, those employers will also be required to provide paid time off for the time it takes for workers to get vaccinated or to recover from any post-vaccine side effects. Until the ETS is developed and published, additional details remain unknown. However, some news outlets are also reporting that employers that fail to comply could face a fine of up to $14,000. Read the President's full covid action plan here. ECA will continue to monitor this latest development and provide more information as it becomes available.