Vaccine mandate could spur businesses to make changes
President Joe Biden’s forceful move to have many private sector employers require workers be vaccinated or submit to COVID-19 testing may alter how some local businesses operate.
Longtime restaurateur Bill Lyons isn’t comfortable subjecting unvaccinated workers at his Casa Rio on the River Walk to Biden’s mandate, a requirement if his workforce tops 100. The establishment currently has 90 on staff but employed 170 before the pandemic.
So Lyons might keep staffing at its current level — even if demand warrants additional hiring — to avoid being subject to the mandate. He said he doesn’t want to play the role of enforcer to his employees, whom he considers family.
“I just hate to force the vaccine on people that have some really strong feelings against it or could receive serious medical complications from getting a shot,” Lyons said.
Exasperated by almost 80 million Americans who haven’t gotten the jab, Biden came out Thursday with the mandate for private employers.
The measure would apply to about two-thirds of all U.S. employees. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is drafting a rule that will require those employers with more than 100 workers to ensure they are vaccinated or produce a negative COVID-19 test result on a weekly basis before going to work.
Some will wait and see
Some major San Antonio employers — including USAA, Frost Bank and Rackspace Technology — indicated they are taking a waitand-see approach on how to respond.
“There are a lot of details to be forthcoming regarding the announcement and mandate, including timing for compliance, reporting and more,” Rackspace spokeswoman Natalie Silva said. “We are actively investigating the options in order to make the best plans for meeting the requirements and for our workforce.”
The cloud computing company has more than 6,000 employees.
Similarly, USAA spokesman Christian Bove said the big financial services company is “waiting for more details.” It employs more than 35,000 people, including roughly 19,000 in San Antonio, where it is one of the city’s largest employers.
Biden’s directive would affect about 3.4 percent of Bexar County businesses, based on 2019 data from the census. It showed there were 1,242 establishments with 100 or more employees out of 36,838 businesses in the county.
It couldn’t be determined how many workers are employed by those 1,242 businesses. At both the state and national level, 48 percent of workers are employed by a business with 100 employees or more.
While Casa Rio’s business started building back from the pandemic in the past few months, like other tourist-oriented businesses it has not been able to find all the workers it needs. The staff shortage has led owner Lyons to close the restaurant 2 ½ days each week.
As many as 30 of Lyons’ employees have not been vaccinated, he said. Some who refuse to get vaccinated suffer from medical conditions and are afraid the vaccine will aggravate their conditions, while others object to the government intruding into their lives.
“Some of them feel the whole thing is political, and they’re balking for that reason,” Lyons said. “They feel there’s some political plot behind it. The progressive liberals, the Democrats are trying to control their soul.”
Lyons, 82, received the vaccine months ago and credits it with helping him recover from a recent case of COVID-19 without long-term complications.
Organizations weigh in
The conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation on Friday called on businesses to ignore Biden’s “unconstitutional vaccine mandate.”
“The federal government has neither authority nor justification for this outrageous intrusion into the personal lives of working Americans,” foundation CEO Kevin Roberts said in a statement. “TPPF encourages individuals, business owners and everyone who believes in fundamental liberties to stand up for your rights and stand against this authoritarian action by the federal government.”
The San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce counts about 900 businesses as members, of which as many as 20 percent employ 100 or more workers. Chamber CEO and President Marina Gonzales spoke cautiously about what the president’s mandate might mean for those members.
“We’re not necessarily opposed” to Biden’s requirements, she said. “What we want to do is carefully review the guidance that I believe is coming out within the next seven days. We want to ensure that our businesses have the resources and flexibility to promote the vaccine without experiencing negative consequences.”
Chamber officials’ main concern is the potential fines businesses may face if they don’t comply with the mandate, Gonzales added. OSHA reportedly intends to impose fines of nearly $14,000 per violation for those companies that defy the mandate.
“We already have a workers shortage that’s been something ongoing,” she added. “So we would be concerned that being too restrictive in these guidelines would result in employees quitting. We’re really looking for that middle ground.”
S.A. nonprofit may benefit
The mandate may be a boon for at least one San Antonio concern.
Officials at Community Labs, a local nonprofit started last year to test for the coronavirus, expect their phones to be ringing as companies call to schedule testing for their employees.
“I definitely imagine that more companies are going to call us in the next few weeks,” Community Labs President Sal Webber said early Friday. “We haven’t taken any calls yet, to my knowledge. But I would expect it to start ringing today and Monday and Tuesday.”
Biden’s push to get more people vaccinated appears to come at a fortuitous time for Community Labs. Currently, it has the capacity to perform about 14,000 COVID-19 tests a day. Starting Wednesday, that figure will increase to about 50,000 a day. Currently, it’s averaging 40,000 to 45,000 tests a week.
“We’ve got room, if people need us,” Webber said. “We’re here to help.”