Late last week the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals lifted the stay on OSHA’s Vaccination and Testing Emergency Temporary Standard (“ETS”).
Employers will need to take action to come into compliance. To account for the uncertainty created by the stay, OSHA is exercising enforcement discretion with respect to the compliance dates to provide employers with additional time to come into compliance. There was an original deadline of December 5, 2021, to come into compliance with all aspects of the ETS except the weekly testing requirement. The testing requirement had an original deadline of January 4, 2022.
OSHA announced it will not issue citations for non-compliance with any of the requirements of the ETS before January 10, 2022, and will not issue citations for non-compliance with the weekly testing requirements before February 9, 2022, so long as the employer is exercising reasonable, good faith efforts to come into compliance with the standard. OSHA has stated it will work closely with the regulated community to provide compliance assistance.
OSHA ETS website https://www.osha.gov/coronavirus/ets2, which includes templates for a Mandatory Vaccination Policy and a Vaccination, Testing and Face Covering Policy
6th Circuit Ruling https://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/21a0287p-06.pdf