Questions businesses have about Biden mandate
Many Columbus business groups and companies are taking a wait-andsee approach to President Joe Biden’s new mandate that their employees be vaccinated against the coronavirus or undergo weekly testing.
And several said the requirement is an overreach.
“Small business owners and their employees want to operate in a safe and healthy manner that allows them to stay open. Additional mandates, enforcement and penalties will further threaten the fragile small business recovery,” said Kevin Kuhlman, vice president of federal government relations of the National Federation of Independent Business, .
Frustrated that more Americans haven’t been vaccinated as case counts surge because of the delta variant, on Thursday Biden announced new rules requiring businesses with at least 100 employees to mandate vaccination or weekly testing. This requirement will affect more than 80 million workers in private sector businesses, according to the White House.
Federal workers and millions of contractors for the federal government will have to be vaccinated as well.
The president also wants to require these businesses to give paid time off to workers to get the vaccine and, if necessary, to recover from the shot.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration will issue an emergency temporary order to implement the national requirement.
The order comes on the heels of Columbus reimposing a mask mandate that requires everyone, regardless of vaccination status, to wear masks inside publicly accessible buildings. That includes restaurants, stores and other businesses.
“This (Biden) mandate will be a blessing for some employers and a catastrophe for others,” said Catherine Burgett, an employment law attorney with the Frost Brown Todd law firm in Columbus. “There are some who have been reluctant to mandate vaccines themselves because of the fear of losing employees or the risks associated with such a mandate. Now, they can point to the forthcoming (orders). For others, this will be viewed as a political overstep.”
Questions about the mandate, she said, include costs, how religious exemptions will be handled, penalties for violations, fraudulent vaccination cards and what unions will do.
“Employees will be mad,” she said. “Mad employees lead to workplace problems.”
She said, hopefully, the federal policy “provides answers to the many questions, and strikes the right balance between taking the steps needed to curb COVID and letting businesses make the right decisions for their workforces.”
John Barker, president and CEO of the Ohio Restaurant Association, said
he understands the push for vaccination.
“We also believe that it’s the solution,” he said. “We encourage our restaurants to find ways to incentivize their employees to get vaccinated, so we’re with the concept, but we’d like to see the details. At this point, it’s speculation on how exactly it’s going to work. Unfortunately, when these things happen this way, it creates more confusion.”
The association represents about 8,000 restaurants in the state, including independent companies and larger chains.
The association is waiting to hear if the president’s order will apply to companies with 100 or more employees per a single location, or if the order applies to the sum of employees across all locations.
Barker added that the executive order may put pressure on an industry already struggling to find workers.
“We are running at a severe deficiency on the number of employees,” he said. “It would be a concern that it would be even harder to get some employees. On the flip side, there may be some people that say, ‘If I could go work at a restaurant that’s fully vaccinated, maybe I’ll go back.’”
Other employers say they will continue to encourage their workers be vaccinated while they figure out what to do to comply with policy.
“We have continued to stress the importance of the vaccine to our associates since it has been available and have continued to enforce a mask policy in common areas since it was first mandated,” Columbus insurance company Encova said. “We are in the process of reviewing President Biden’s mandate and will be developing an action plan to make sure we are compliant.”
“We have strongly encouraged our employees to get vaccinated and have provided incentives to do so, but we are not currently requiring vaccines,” American Electric Power said. “We will be evaluating the Biden administration’s proposed rules to determine their impact on AEP.”
Like other companies, Honda says it, too, has been working with employees to get vaccinated.
“Regarding the administration’s new plan, we will carefully evaluate what impact it will have on our business and associates,” the automaker said.
“We were as surprised as anyone to hear about the mandate,” said Jamie Karl, spokesman for the Ohio Manufacturers’ Association. “We’re talking to our legal experts and some national partners about details.”
Karl said some companies have found success by offering incentives for workers to get vaccinated, such as one introduced in July by the steel producer Cleveland-cliffs that pays vaccinated employees up to $3,000.
Fifth Third Bank said it has also provided incentives for workers to get vaccinated, and it’s implementing a process for workers to record their vaccination status.
“We will be working to clearly understand the newly announced federal mandates – the expectations, the timing and to determine our next steps once the rules are final,” the Cincinnatibased bank said.
Scott’s Miracle-gro this week put in place a vaccine mandate for workers at the company’s corporate office in Marysville. The policy will provide exemptions for medical or religious reasons.
While the company is still formulating its policy, it did say it didn’t see any issues with compliance.
Like Scotts, more private employers are mandating vaccines than earlier this summer.
Gallup reported Thursday that 19% of U.S. employees in August say their employer is requiring vaccinations before returning to the office, double what it was in July.
Fifty-five percent of employees, down from 62% in July, say their employer is encouraging but not requiring vaccinations, while 26% say their employer has not done either.
“Whether it is the federal government or the Ohio legislature, one-sizefits-all government mandates limiting employer rights are not the right approach,” said Steve Stivers, CEO of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce and a former Republican congressman. “The Ohio Chamber will always stand up for the rights of employers to manage what is best for their own business, employees and customers.”
Jpmorgan Chase & Co., the largest private employer in Greater Columbus, said it already does weekly testing of unvaccinated staff.
Based on worker responses, Nationwide said the vaccination rate for its staff in the region exceeds the rate in the community.
“We will continue to make that our priority as we evaluate new guidance to help control the spread of the virus and keep our workplace and our community as safe as possible,” the company said.
Dispatch Reporters Jim Weiker, Beth Harvilla, Erica Thompson and Patrick Cooley contributed to this report. mawilliams@dispatch.com @Bizmarkwilliams