City working on vaccine policy for employees

Officials looking to ‘maintain a safe work environment’

Royal Oak officials are moving to establish a COVID-19 vaccine policy that stops short of a mandate.

“The local concerns from the mayor and City Commission are to protect the health and well being of our workforce,” said City Manager Paul Brake. “We will do everything to maintain a safe work environment.”

Brake met recently with city department heads to discuss how the city will shape its policy. Nothing has been implemented yet.

Royal Oak has a pending directive that would require unvaccinated employees to be tested every week.

“Until we know (which employees) haven’t gotten the vaccine, this is preliminary,” Brake said.

Public safety workers were offered vaccines in January and February.

The city hosted a two-dose vaccine clinic for other employees in March and April, covering about half the city workforce, while others have gotten vaccines at pharmacies or through other programs, Brake said.

Right now it is unclear how contractors for the city, who work at the Farmers Market, city Ice Arena and Salter Center, would be affected by a city COVID-19 vaccine policy, he added.

President Joe Biden earlier this month ordered vaccine requirements expected to affect at least 80 million people, including executive branch employees and federal contractors, employees of private companies with 100 or more employees, health care workers and others.

The mandate also covers roughly 17 million workers at health facilities that receive federal Medicare or Medicaid, according to the Associated Press.

The rules of Biden’s mandate are still being written.

His move came after COVID-19 cases jumped

from the more transmissible delta variant in many parts of the country.

Governor Gretchen Whitmer has not mandated vaccines for state employees at this point.

Among local governments, however, Ann Arbor is requiring city employees to be vaccinated by Oct. 8 with a few exceptions for workers for health or religious reasons, and those covered by collective bargaining agreements.

With the ebb and flow of new COVID-19 infection rates, how state and local officials respond is changeable.

Brake said it is most likely that Royal Oak will ultimately follow local government safety rules that have yet to be set by the Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

MIOSHA isn’t expected to until the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administrations directs the state agency on what to do, Brake said.

“We’re not going to wait until then,” he said. “We will be implementing a policy within weeks.”