Biden Administration’s Second COVID-19 ETS to Be Announced in Coming Weeks

 

Working with Conn Maciel Carey LLP, ILTA continues to monitor developments regarding the Biden Administration’s planned wider COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Standards (ETS) for companies with more than 100 employees. The President had previously imposed ETS on the health care sector specifically but has since determined that a general set of temporary guidelines for the larger public is necessary to combat the rise of the highly infectious Delta variant.

While the finalized ETS have yet to be released at the time of writing, ILTA and Conn Maciel Carey’s Employers COVID-19 Prevention Coalition submitted preliminary comments to OSHA on high-level expected aspects of the coming rules. Topics included asking for a staggered implementation of any vaccine or testing mandate, paid time off for workers to receive and recover from side effects of the vaccine, who pays for the cost of routine testing, and how workers would be counted at individual facilities in relation to the whole organization.     

At the time of writing, OSHA continues to hold industry stakeholder meetings for further input on their initial ETS before they are published. Once the final ETS are released, likely in the next few weeks, the coalition will likely submit a second round of comments.