Source: Claiborne S. Guy, director, employment policy & practices, AGC of America
On Friday, December 17, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit dissolved the Fifth Circuit’s stay of the OSHA Vaccination and Testing Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS). This decision allows OSHA to proceed with implementation and enforcement of the rule issued on November 5, 2021. AGC is a party to the proceedings in the Sixth Circuit, having filed its own petition for petition for review, and is actively engaged in a review of its legal options moving forward. AGC will continue to keep its chapters and members updated on any future developments.
To account for any uncertainty created by the Fifth Circuit’s stay, OSHA is exercising enforcement discretion with respect to the compliance dates of the ETS. To provide employers with sufficient time to come into compliance, OSHA will not issue citations for noncompliance with any requirements of the ETS before January 10, 2022, and will not issue citations for noncompliance with the standard’s testing requirements before February 9, 2022, so long as an employer is exercising reasonable, good faith efforts to come into compliance with the standard.
In an effort to assist members with increasing the vaccination rates among their workforce and to comply with the ETS requirements, AGC created a vaccine tool kit webpage which contains a construction oriented summary of the ETS detailing employers compliance options and obligations as well as additional resources. If you have any questions, or for more information, please contact Kevin Cannon at kevin.cannon@agc.org or Nazia Shah at nazia.shah@agc.org.