Supreme Court blocks business vaccination rule

The U.S. Supreme Court has blocked enforcement of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration”™s (OSHA) rule requiring that large businesses make their employees either get Covid-19 vaccinations or undergo weekly testing for the virus. The rule applied to more than 80 million employees of firms that have 100 or more on the payroll.

The Supreme Court’s decision on the vaccination requirement for employees of large businesses was released Jan. 13.

U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh said Jan. 14 that he expects many large businesses will continue to require employee vaccination or periodic testing despite the Supreme Court’s ruling.

The conservative-leaning justices who comprise the majority on the court, in an unsigned opinion, said, “a vaccine mandate is strikingly unlike the workplace regulations that OSHA has typically imposed. A vaccination, after all, ”˜cannot be undone at the end of the workday.”™”

The majority said that its opinion was not intended to completely undercut OSHA.

“That is not to say OSHA lacks authority to regulate occupation-specific risks related to Covid”“19. Where the virus poses a special danger because of the particular features of an employee”™s job or workplace, targeted regulations are plainly permissible. We do not doubt, for example, that OSHA could regulate researchers who work with the Covid”“19 virus. So too could OSHA regulate risks associated with working in particularly crowded or cramped environments.”

The majority explained the action it was taking this way: “Many States, businesses, and nonprofit organizations challenged OSHA”™s rule in Courts of Appeals across the country. The Fifth Circuit initially entered a stay. But when the cases were consolidated before the Sixth Circuit, that court lifted the stay and allowed OSHA”™s rule to take effect. Applicants now seek emergency relief from this Court, arguing that OSHA”™s mandate exceeds its statutory authority and is otherwise unlawful. Agreeing that applicants are likely to prevail, we grant their applications and stay the rule.”

In a dissenting opinion, Justices Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan pointed out “grave dangers to the citizens of this country””and particularly, to its workers. The disease has by now killed almost 1 million Americans and hospitalized almost 4 million. It spreads by person-to-person contact in confined indoor spaces, so causes harm in nearly all workplace environments. And in those environments, more than any others, individuals have little control, and therefore little capacity to mitigate risk.”

They said that OSHA, “the administrative agency charged with ensuring health and safety in workplaces did what Congress commanded it to: It took action to address Covid”“19”™s continuing threat in those spaces.”

The minority said that the conservative justices seriously misapplied the applicable legal standards and stymied the government”™s ability to counter the threat that Covid poses to the nation”™s workers. The justices also said that the majority is wrong in thinking that those who brought cases against OSHA will prevail.

“The lives and health of the Nation”™s workers are at stake,” the minority wrote. “And the majority deprives the Government of a measure it needs to keep them safe.”

In a separate opinion involving cases brought by the states of Missouri and Louisiana, the court backed a federal rule that health care facilities receiving Medicare and Medicaid funding require their staffs to be vaccinated against Covid unless exempt for medical or religious reasons. Conservatives Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch and Barrett dissented.