Biden Gives January 4 Deadline to Employers for New OSHA Vaccine Requirements

The Biden administration announced Thursday that there was a deadline for vaccine rules to be applied to companies with more than 100 employees.

The rule, which wasOriginal announcementPresident Joe Biden, in September, required employers with more than 100 workers to have their employees vaccinated. Workers in the healthcare industry must also be vaccinated if they receive federal funding through Medicare/Medicaid.

The January 4th deadline is for the rule to be implemented by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. At that point, workers must be fully vaccinated, completing a two-dose regimen of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, or the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Employees must submit their test results to employers if they have not been vaccinated. barring any union agreementsBetween employees and companies. Workers who refuse to be vaccinated will have to wear masks to work.

The rule says that companies must provide paid time off for workersUnvaccinated people can still get their shots if they wish. All time needed to recover from side effect of the vaccine must be paid.

The rule is expected to affect more than 100 million workersOr roughly two-thirds of the American workforce — 84 million workers at private companies, and 17 million workers in health care fields.

Employers could face penalties of $14,000 for each employee who violates the OSHA regulation.

Biden stated in a statement that the new rule was necessary due to the fact that not enough Americans were getting vaccinated.

“Vaccination is the single best pathway out of this pandemic,” Biden said in a statement. “And while I would have much preferred that requirements not become necessary, too many people remain unvaccinated for us to get out of this pandemic for good.”

Biden also noted that there “have been no ‘mass firings’ and worker shortages because of vaccine requirements” so far. Despite this, some polls have erroneously suggested that vaccine mandates would lead to mass quittingsAdditional surveys have shown that people rarely act on these threats.

According to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll conducted last month, only 5 percent of unvaccinated adults said that they have left their jobs due to their employers voluntarily requiring vaccines — even though 1 in 4 workers say that such a requirement has been imposed on them.

Polling conducted by Gallup shortly after Biden announced the OSHA rule in SeptemberThe plan was supported by the majority of Americans. Responding to a question about whether more than 100 employees should be required to have vaccines, with the option of offering weekly testing for those who choose not to, 58 percent said that they agreed with the rule. Only 42 percent disagreed. The split on requiring health care workers who receive federal funding to be vaccinated was even more: 63 percent supported the idea, while only 37% said they didn’t.