As much as you may want to, you better not cry – employers with 100 or more employees should watch out. On Friday, December 17, 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit dissolved the stay on the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) Emergency Temporary Standards (ETS) requiring employers with 100 or more employees to require all covered employees to either be vaccinated or commence weekly testing. It also includes face covering requirements. You can find our previous article touching on the ETS requirements here. Ultimately, this means, at least for now, the OSHA ETS is reinstated.
Due to the litigation surrounding the ETS, OSHA announced that it would not issue citations for ETS noncompliance before January 10, 2022. In that announcement, OSHA added that, “so long as an employer is exercising reasonable, good faith efforts to come into compliance with the standard,” it will not issue citations for noncompliance with the standard’s testing requirements before February 9, 2022.
It is worth noting that the ETS was immediately challenged and is being brought directly to the U.S. Supreme Court, so it may be stopped there as well. We’ll keep you updated if the Supreme Court takes any action to stall the ETS. Employers should review the ETS requirements and contact us if there are any questions about how to become compliant should no further stays occur between now and January 10, 2022.
If you have any questions about the ETS, need assistance implementing these rules in a way which is least disruptive to business, or need anything else, please reach out to the experts at Young, Cohen & Durrett, LLP at (916) 569-1700.