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On Nov. 4, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced an emergency temporary standard (ETS) directing larger employers to take steps to keep their workplaces safe from COVID-19 by either requiring vaccinations or weekly testing and masks for those who are not vaccinated.
This effort has been blocked, at least temporarily, and is now being considered by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. For the moment, OSHA has suspended implementation and enforcement of the requirements pending future developments in the litigation.
Most Americans know little about how OSHA works. Yet that hasn’t stopped critics—including politicians and judges who should know better—from accusing OSHA of imposing a “vaccine mandate,” labeling it an unconstitutional power grab and conjuring images of agents barging into worksites, making unachievable demands and driving companies out of business with huge fines if their workers aren’t vaccinated against COVID-19.
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Read More: Yes, You Should Get a COVID-19 Booster
We know how OSHA works—we ran it. We can assure concerned employers there is no “OSHA vaccine mandate.” OSHA is charged with assuring that employers provide safe workplaces for their employees and that is exactly what it is doing.
The past 21 months have shown that the workplace plays a central role in driving the pandemic. Exposed on the job, workers infect other workers and bring the virus back to their homes and communities. Just as employers must make sure that asbestos is not present in a workplace, the ETS requires employers to protect their workers from exposure to another deadly hazard: potentially infectious workers.
Contrary to what its critics are labeling it, the OSHA standard does not require that anyone get vaccinated. Large and medium-size employers (it covers only those with 100 or more workers) have the option to require unvaccinated workers to wear a mask on the job and test negative for COVID-19…
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Source : time
