re: Federal Vaccine Mandates

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How does this hold up in states where laws are passed banning vaccine mandates?

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Exactly my question... I'm assuming this goes to the USSC and is a 10th amendment issue.

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Right now the state law or executive action rules with no federal legislation. Like you said, the 10th amendment. After federal legislation (which currently doesn't exist) then federal legislation will rule under the supremacy clause. That's my constitutional analysis.

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It amazes me when I read this, because my agency has been very clear on deadlines and attestation requirements. Hell, they even laid out when you needed to have the different shots by in order to meet the November 22 deadline.

How they will handle those accommodation requests is another question entirely. I've heard some crazy numbers for expected RA requests (potentially half to three-quarters of our staff), which makes it hard for me to believe they grant all of them.

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What agency are you with? You don't have to answer if it's sensitive. We had the weekly test option for a long time until they scrapped that for budget reasons.
Then we set an attestation requirement deadline, that about 7 days prior was stopped with a massive bold email telling people to destroy everything they've collected so far.

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I mean, there's really no "plan" unless the DoD is playing games. The mandate gives 2 options, get vaccinated, or request an accommodation. The alternative is termination. The safe workforce task force has laid all of this out.

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This sounds like the options we may eventually get. The problem comes with termination. What would the employee be terminated for? Rumors would be failure to follow an EO. So the problem with terminating a federal employee are the protections afforded to the employee. Notice, suspension, improvement plans, and so on. The government has to go above and beyond to fix the situation first. How they do and show this will be difficult.

Legally speaking the mask mandate in a federal building is an EO as well. People are in here all the time not following that EO to the letter. Has there been a single piece of paperwork to correct this? Not that I've seen or heard of.

Now when/if supervisors start to write people up for failure to follow one EO vs the other, there is a clear case of employee discrimination and it's easy to get the lawyers involved.

Never underestimate the bureaucracy of the federal government.

I'm sure it's vague by design.

Companies should maybe take our CPAs approach with deductions. He says if it's not clear cut, TAKE IT (in this case DON'T DO IT) or else you lose it forever .. and if he was wrong the IRS says "hey that was wrong .. your penalty is ..." then we'd pay it. In this case it would be "hey you didn't interpret it right" BUT the business response would be "it was vague and we did the best we could .. thanks for the clarification".

:dunnno:

That's up to our legal department to determine. Once they provide guidance to the business, we're expected to follow it.

Can the safety of the vaccine be an issue for companies refusing to enforce the mandate? Can lack of knowledge of mid and long term side effects be the basis for refusing the mandate? This vaccine has not met typical testing standards.

No company that I am aware of, including the one I work for, is ever going to push back on those grounds. They don't have the proof and aren't going to spend the money to develop the proof in the short timeframes they are being forced into accepting.

Hold the line!

Still no official guidance from my agency and one of the first shots was due yesterday to be compliant with the NOV vaccination requirement. They're going to push these deadlines and push them again. Unless you want the vaccine, you should wait it out and see where the process goes.

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They're going to push these deadlines and push them again.

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Not sure if that's a gamble I would want to take.

Regardless, I'm taking the steps I feel are necessary. I am not tied to my job, so if things don't go a certain way, I have no problem walking out the door.

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Unless they scraped it before September 9, they didn't scrap it for budget reasons. They scraped it because they were told to. Most agencies never implemented testing because they couldn't make it work.

Several agencies were apparently holding out on the attestations while "waiting for more guidance", aka, stalling.

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That is roughly when it was scrapped. We were supposed to start weekly testing Sep 13th, but that Friday before the weekend, they said we were holding off. The next week I heard it was canned for budget reasons. I work on a military base that has a large hospital capable of testing. That was going to be plan A.

We're still "waiting for more guidance". Our military workforce is 91% fully vaccinated and federal civilian at 78%.

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You really need to look up the white house safer workforce task force and not rely solely on your agency, because this process is already laid out. It's not a rumor, it's a fact. If you do not comply, and do not have an accommodation granted, they will move to disciplinary action. Starts with 5 days of counseling, then up to 14 days suspended, then move to terminate.

Sounds like some higher ups in your agency just don't like this and are fighting it. I suspect that's not entirely uncommon, as there are other agencies like the Bureau of Prisons that aren't overly supportive of this, but the facts are there.

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I believe that was the process recommended by OPM, but it's still up to the agency to follow it's applicable procedures.

Here is an article with the following. LINK

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Agencies will have to follow the normal process and give required procedural rights, and follow any required by collective bargaining agreements, when they the guidance says.

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Also note the link to the OPM director's memo is gone now. Could just be moved.

I also benefit from having command staff lawyers that deal in employee termination issues. I have to jump through so many hoops to get bad employees fired. Things that would get people fired at any other job still have to be met with performance improvement plans here. I don't think the government will have the legal ammo in this case.

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That is roughly when it was scrapped. We were supposed to start weekly testing Sep 13th, but that Friday before the weekend, they said we were holding off. The next week I heard it was canned for budget reasons. I work on a military base that has a large hospital capable of testing. That was going to be plan A.

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Testing in Lieu of Vaccination is a big topic right now in the corporate world. Testing is extremely expensive and will have a major impact on companies bottom lines.

Testing costs from $50 to $125 per test per employee. So if a company has 10,000 workers who opt for 2x weekly testing in lieu of vaccination, Then the cost of that per week if the tests are just $50 = $1M per week.

A lot of companies are not offering testing in lieu of for this reason. So yes, it was most likely a "budgetary" decision.