Today, every Republican Member of the Education and Labor Committee, led by Republican Leader Virginia Foxx (R-NC), sent a letter to Department of Labor Secretary Marty Walsh requesting he immediately suspend work on the inappropriate, unprecedented, and likely unlawful national mandate for COVID-19 vaccination and testing in the workplace.
The Members write: “[W]e are deeply concerned about the impact that this ‘emergency’ rule will have on hundreds of thousands of business owners at a time when our economy continues to struggle, inflation is running rampant, job creators are facing a massive workforce shortage, and more than 8.4 million Americans are out of work."
The Members continue: “After failing to ‘shut down the virus,’ President Biden is now weaponizing the federal bureaucracy to crush American businesses with this rushed and unprecedented OSHA mandate. This scheme not only passes the buck to workers and job creators, but it also creates massive uncertainty, costs, and liabilities for many employers. Small businesses will be particularly harmed by being forced to police vaccine and testing on behalf of the federal government."
The Members conclude: “…OSHA should immediately suspend its work on the ETS. Job creators, workers, and our stumbling economic recovery will suffer from this unilateral effort to shift blame and responsibility for vaccines and testing to U.S. employers. If President Biden or the Department seeks to regulate America’s workplaces, such an extreme, intrusive, disruptive, and likely unlawful mandate should either be proposed through formal notice-and-comment rulemaking to allow for review and scrutiny or be initiated through direct congressional authorization."
