OSHA Advances COVID-19 Standard to Protect Workplaces

Take better late than never and blend it with a mixed bag. On Nov. 4, 20 months after the pandemic began officially, the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) released a COVID-19 vaccine and testing standard for workplaces. First, OSHA’s Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) had to pass a final review at the federal Office of Management and Budget. The new standard will apply to 80 million private-sector workers, or half of the US labor force.

White House action helped. On Sept. 9, President Biden called for a requirement that “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.” Readers can judge if that is a reasonable statement or not.

Jessica E. Martinez is co-executive director of National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH). “National COSH supports science-based standards to protect workers from the deadly COVID-19 pandemic,” she said in a statement. “Based on evidence from employers where a vaccine requirement is already in effect, this new standard can increase vaccination rates among more than 80 million US private sector workers.”

There is, however, a catch, that bears mention. “We’re glad to see this standard include paid time off for workers to get a vaccine and recover from any side effects,” Martinez said. “But it’s very unfortunate that this new rule does not require employers to pay for face masks, or for the cost of testing for workers who choose not to get vaccinated.”

Workers’ stories of laboring without an ETS during the pandemic can help us to grasp what is at stake. “Every one of us in my plan—every single worker—has been infected with COVID-19,” said Marielena, a poultry worker who is a member of the Western North Carolina Workers’ Center and used a pseudonym to protect her privacy. “There is no physical distancing. They put sanitation stations up, but they are more for show than use. Our supervisors pressure us to use every available minute to chase chickens and slaughter them. There is no time or support for observing safety rules.”

Writing in The Daily Signal, Doug Badger and Paul J. Larkin Jr. disagree with the legality of vaccine mandates. “Congress has not given OSHA license to mandate COVID-19 vaccines,” they write. “Lawmakers needn’t prohibit OSHA from imposing a mandate that they never authorized the agency to issue in the first place. On the contrary, if Congress wants a general vaccine mandate, it must pass a law establishing one.”

Martinez of NCOSH did not buy Badger and Larkin’s stance on a national COVID-19 standard for private-sector workplaces. “OSHA has the authority to create federal regulations that set the standard for how states are going to act,” she told The Progressive Populist via email. “We are one nation with one set of workplace safety standards—not 50 standards. (Think about the use and abuse of states’ rights versus federal rights in the Jim Crow era, an approach that is rearing its ugly head once more.) In her view, the employer has a legal responsibility to provide a healthy workplace with maximum safety during the pandemic.

[The Fifth Circuit US Court of Appeals Nov. 6 blocked the vaccine mandate, pending further action.]

Seth Sandronsky lives and works in Sacramento. He is a journalist and member of the Pacific Media Workers Guild. Email sethsandronsky@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, December 1, 2021

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