Biden, CEOs, biz leaders meet on COVID-19 vaccine mandates
WASHINGTON » President Joe Biden met Wednesday with the CEOs of Walt Disney and Columbia Sportswear, and other business executives and leaders, to discuss his recently announced vaccine requirement for companies that employ at least 100 people.
The White House meeting comes less than a week after Biden said that the Labor Department is working to require businesses with 100 or more employees to order those workers to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, or show a negative test result at least weekly.
Some 80 million workers would be subject to the requirement, Biden said. The Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration is working to issue an emergency rule to implement the requirement in the coming weeks.
Biden said it would “take a little while” for the agency to put the new requirement “on the wall” alongside other health and safety policies, but noted that employer moves toward mandates are already moving to improve the nation’s laggard vaccination rate. His administration hopes that the announcement of the rule-making will jumpstart the business community’s embrace of vaccinate-ortest requirements even before the OSHA rule is implemented.
Biden noted that Fox News, many of whose hosts have sharply criticized his policy, has required its employees to report their vaccination status and is moving to require testing for its unvaccinated staffers.