Federal Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals rules December 17 that employers with 100 or more employees must be vaccinated or undergo weekly testing; opponents of mandate already at Supreme Court asking for emergency action to delay ruling
Back in November 2021 Maricopa and Pima Community Colleges stated that they were going to require employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 to meet federal mandates under the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) mandate . The community colleges were following President Joe Biden’s executive order based on OSHA for federal contractors, which requires all employees to be fully vaccinated, with limited accommodations.
While Yavapai Community College remained silent in November, it appears it would fall into the category of a federal contractor given the funding it receives from the Federal Government for various projects.
However, on Friday, November 12, 2021, the Federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously issued a temporary injunction, striking down the Biden Administration’s attempts to mandate COVID-19 vaccinations for private employers with 100 or more employees.
Now, on December 17 the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion upholding the Biden mandate, which effectively nullified the Fifth Circuit’s decision. “Fundamentally, the [rule] is an important step in curtailing the transmission of a deadly virus that has killed over 800,000 people in the United States, brought our healthcare system to its knees, forced businesses to shut down for months on end, and cost hundreds of thousands of workers their jobs,” wrote Circuit Judge Jane B. Stranch. “The harm to the government and the public interest outweighs any irreparable injury to the individual petitioners who may be subject to a vaccination policy,” she said.
In addition to the vaccine and testing requirements, the rule requires companies to determine who among their workers are vaccinated and who are not, and to enforce a mask mandate for unvaccinated workers. The new deadline for those steps is Jan. 10.
OSHA had estimated that the vaccine-or-test rule could save more than 6,500 lives and prevent over 250,000 hospitalizations in the six months that it would be in effect.
In dozens of lawsuits around the country, Republican-led states, businesses, religious groups and some individuals have claimed the Biden administrative order is unconstitutional. Saturday morning, dozens of business groups and religious organizations had already filed papers asking the Supreme Court for a new emergency stay on the Sixth Circuit’s decision.