COVID Vaccine Mandate for Workplaces Blocked by Supreme Court, Deemed Not an Occupational Hazard

Sophie Webster, Tech Times 13 January 2022, 11:01 pm

President Joe Biden's rule requiring all workers at massive companies to get vaccinated and get tested weekly was blocked by the US Supreme Court.

The justices stated that the vaccine mandate exceeded the authority of the Biden administration.

COVID Vaccine Mandate Blocked

The justices of the Supreme Court rules that a limited vaccine mandate could stand for staff at healthcare facilities that are government-funded, according to The Washington Post.

The Biden administration said that the mandates would help the country fight the pandemic. President Biden, whose approval rate has been on a downward spiral, expressed his disappointment with the court's decision to block "common-sense life-saving requirements" for employees.

Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump celebrated the decision and said that vaccine mandates would have destroyed the American economy.

Also Read: Google Leaked Memo: Employees to Lose Pay, Get Fired for Failing to Follow COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate

The workplace vaccine mandate of the Biden administration would have required all workers to get a COVID-19 vaccine, or wear a mask and get tested weekly at their own spending, according to Gizmodo.

The mandate would have applied to companies with 100 employees and above and it would affect 84 million workers in the country. It was created to be enforced by employers.

Opponents, like several Republican politicians and some businesses, said that the Biden administration was over-stepping its power with the mandate, which were announced back in November and immediately drew challenges.

In the end, President Biden's vaccine mandates stood or fell based on the interpretations of the federal statute, and not due to the principles of liberty or the appeals to the public.

Split Decision

According to a majority of the Supreme Court, President Biden had the US law on his side when he ordered all healthcare workers to get COVID-19 shots, but using a workplace safety statute to push a vaccine mandate on the employers was "a bridge too far."

Last year, hundreds of employees protested the Biden administration's vaccine mandate.

The United Airlines had even dismissed 593 employees for refusing to get a COVID-19 vaccination.

Again, the current balance of the Supreme Court comes into relief, with four Republican justices, three Democrats, and two who are at the ideological fulcrum.

The mixed judicial bag is the latest setback for a COVID-response plan that usually has seemed a step behind the latest update in the pandemic.

The Biden administration was very slow to encourage booster shots and caught off guard by the surge in Omicron cases, according to ABC News.

Now, President Biden will have to convince the Congress to act on mandates or he needs to figure out ways to lead the country out of the pandemic that has affected it for two years now.

In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court justices agreed with the argument, saying that the workplace safety rule for employers was too broad to fall under the authority of the Department of Labor's Occupational Health and Safety Administration or DLOHSA to regulate the safety in the workplace.

The court's majority wrote that the virus can and does spread at public places, including events, schools, and even at home, basically everywhere where people can gather and that risk is no different from the daily dangers that people face from air pollution, crime, or any other disease.

The court added that the virus is no exercise of federal power, it is just a significant encroachment on the lives and the health of a vast number of employees.

The more limited rule about more than 10 million staff at healthcare facilities that got government funding did not pose the same concern, as the Supreme Court decided by 5-4.