Biden’s vaccine mandate spells confusion and worry for some employers

“I’ve had a lot of people ask me what’s going to happen, and I guess at this point, my response then is, ‘Well, let’s just wait and see.’ We’re not working on a lot of information here,” Lawrence told the Washington Examiner.

This month, Biden called on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to develop an Emergency Temporary Standard that would require employees at companies with 100 or more workers to be vaccinated or be tested once a week. Employers could face fines up to $14,000 per violation, but details about the plan, which will affect between 80 million and 100 million workers, are still scarce.

Labor and employment attorney Rebecca Demaree said that more information about the vaccine mandate and testing requirements will be available when OSHA releases its Emergency Temporary Standard. In the meantime, business leaders have been left scratching their heads.

“Practically half an hour after the president made his speech, I had a line of people on the phone wanting to know when we should comply and how we needed to comply,” Demaree told the Washington Examiner during a phone call.

One qualm that small businesses have had is the seemingly arbitrary number of 100 employees.

“What’s the science between 99 and 100?” Lawrence asked. “That’s one of my questions. It doesn’t make any sense.”

While Lawrence is vaccinated, he said that some of his employees, particularly his truck drivers, may not want to get inoculated. He said his complaint isn’t about the vaccine but rather that the Biden administration wants to mandate it. There is a sense of confusion about the mandate, he said.

“Trying to come up with a strategic plan when you don’t know the rules of the game,” Lawrence mused of the company’s current situation, adding that he is waiting until more details are available before implementing any companywide procedures.

Lawrence said the prospects of the mandate are “scary” for him because weekly testing for his employees who don’t want to be vaccinated would entail a logistical nightmare. Testing would be manageable for the company staff members who are static and work in the office or warehouses, but it would be challenging to keep up with for the company’s drivers, he said.

Truckers at Lawrence’s small business are out seven to 10 days at a time and traveling to different places, which he said would make scheduling weekly compliance tests challenging. “And last I checked, they didn’t have semi parking in most of the clinics around the country, so how am I supposed to get my drivers tested on a weekly basis?” Lawrence wondered.

Not only will the move be logistically challenging, one of the most glaring questions for business owners is who is going to pay for weekly testing for employees who refuse to be vaccinated. While massive corporations with thousands of employees may be able to absorb the cost should the government require employers to pay, smaller businesses with just over 100 employees could end up struggling.

Deric West is the president of Honeoye Falls Marketplace and Mendon Meadows Marketplace, two grocery stores located south of Rochester, New York. West said he has about 100 employees at one store and 50 at the other and expects the government to calculate those as one entity, meaning that his stores will fall under the umbrella of the vaccine mandate.

West told the Washington Examiner that if companies have to pay for COVID-19 tests for several employees every week, the costs could add up and create a “tremendous burden” for employers. The cost of the testing could end up being passed down to consumers, he said.

Inflation in the United States has ballooned to unexpected levels this year. Consumer prices increased 5.3% in the year ending in July, according to a report by the Department of Labor. While several factors, including increased demand, are behind the higher numbers, requiring employers to pay for tests could add to the price of goods.

“Whatever industry you’re in, that cost is going to have to be absorbed,” West said.

Lawrence also worried about testing costs and guesses that his business may end up shouldering the burden.

“As usual as a small-business owner, I assume that it’s just going to get pushed back on the company,” Lawrence said.

Biden’s edict also comes at a time when businesses across the country are facing labor shortages.

“I’m afraid we’ll lose drivers because they’re just not going to do it. And they’re not going to want to comply with the weekly testing either,” Lawrence said, pointing out that his company is already short on labor right now.

To get around the vaccine mandate or testing requirements, drivers from a company like Lawrence’s could move to another trucking operation that has fewer than 100 employees and completely circumvent the government edict. He said there are many operations with just 20 or 30 trucks that would be more than happy to hire his employees should they quit over the new federal mandate.

West said there is a sense of “despair” among the business owners whom he confers with because of the state of the labor market and government regulations.

West said he thinks the new federal mandate will affect his businesses’ ability to hire and retain employees. He said that should his stores end up with too few workers, it would negatively affect the community because they wouldn’t be able to serve customers and provide food at the same level as in the past.

There is also the question of just how much power the mandate will functionally have over people actually getting vaccinated.

Free vaccines have been available for months to any adult who wants one, and there has been a concerted effort to get as many shots into arms as possible. Many unvaccinated workers haven’t been vaccinated yet because they don’t wish to get the vaccine, which would mean many workers would choose to take costly weekly tests rather than suddenly change their minds and get inoculated because of a mandate.

“I think those people who don’t want to get vaccinated are really dug in and have a set of beliefs or reasons that is precluding them from getting the vaccination,” West said.

Additionally, Biden’s announcement did not address workplace discrepancies but focused solely on the number of employees at any given company.

While some companies with only a couple dozen employees might have all their workers sitting close together in an office setting, other businesses with more than 100 employees could be fully remote. Opponents of the mandate have pointed out that dictating the requirement based only on employment size doesn’t logically address who is most at risk of getting sick.

Both Lawrence and West said they were caught off guard by Biden’s announcement about the mandates.

Lawrence said he had been paying attention to the messaging coming out of the White House and that he got the sense the administration would not go down the route of mandating vaccines at the national level. He said his company was “blindsided” by the decision.

West said he was surprised that the federal government decided to use businesses as the vessel to propagate vaccination regulations, especially for companies as small as his that might not have the resources to comply.

So far, business organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce have not taken a strong stand against the executive order but have also not embraced it.

“The Chamber will carefully review the details of the executive orders and associated regulations and will work to ensure that employers have the resources, guidance, and flexibility necessary to ensure the safety of their employees and customers and comply with public health requirements,” it said in a statement.