AZ And 10 Other States Challenge Employer Vaccine Requirement

PHOENIX, AZ — New federal guidelines issued Thursday require Arizona employers with 100 or more employees to develop a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy or give employees a choice between getting vaccinated or getting tested regularly and wearing a face mask.

The emergency temporary standard from OSHA affects 84 million private sector employees but the agency estimates that over 26 million workers who are affected are unvaccinated and the standard will lead to about 72 percent of those workers getting the shot.

In some states, the standard also affects state and local government workers, including teachers and school staff.

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich announced Friday that he is leading a coalition of 11 states in a lawsuit against the Biden Administration and federal officials to stop the federal vaccine mandate for private employers, he announced in a news release.

The coalition filed a judicial review in United States Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals Friday morning.

“Today is the first step in stopping the Biden Administration’s misguided COVID-19 vaccine mandate for employees of small businesses,” Brnovich said in a news release. “I am urging the court to move expeditiously to defend the fundamental rights of all Americans.”

Joining Arizona in the challenge are attorneys general from Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Arkansas, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Alaska, New Hampshire, and Wyoming.

“This mandate is unconstitutional, unlawful, and unwise," the state attorneys general said in their petition to the court. "The federal government lacks constitutional authority under its enumerated powers to issue this mandate, and its attempt to do so unconstitutionally infringes on the States’ powers expressly reserved by the Tenth Amendment. OSHA also lacks statutory authority to issue this mandate, which is shoe-horned into statutes that govern workplace safety and was never intended to federalize public-health policy.”

Here’s what the standard means for Arizona employers with 100 or more employees:

Employers are required to provide paid time off for employees to get vaccinated as well as paid time off to recover from any side effects.

Employers aren’t required to pay for coronavirus testing or face masks under the standard.

The standard is effective as soon as it’s published in the Federal Register on Friday. Employers have 30 days to comply with most of the requirements and 60 days to comply with the testing requirements.

In Arizona, which has a state plan that also covers state and local government workers, the standard covers workers like teachers and school staff.

States like Arizona, which have a state plan, can create their own standard but it has to be at least as effective as the federal measure.

There are other provisions in the standards like employees — whether they are vaccinated or not — would have to provide let employers know if they test positive for COVID-19. The employee would not be able to return to work until they are cleared.

Employees who work from home, work outdoors, or go to a workplace where there are no other employees are not covered by the rules. Workers will be able to ask for exemptions on medical or religious grounds.

The Department of Labor says unvaccinated workers face grave danger from being exposed to the coronavirus at work and this action is necessary to protect them.

Several businesses, health care organizations and governments have already moved to implement COVID-19 vaccination policies.

The city of Tucson implemented vaccination requirements for all of its employees with a deadline for employees to be fully vaccinated by Dec. 1. When the city announced the rule in August, around 1,000 of its workers were unvaccinated. By mid-October, when the city voted to terminate any employee who wasn't vaccinated by Dec. 1, there were only around 300 unvaccinated city employees,

Arizona health care organizations like Banner Health and Valleywise Health, among many others, required employees to be vaccinated by Nov. 1. Phoenix Children's Hospital employees were required to be vaccinated by Oct. 1, 12 News reported.

President Biden framed the issue as a simple choice between getting more people vaccinated or prolonging the pandemic.

“While I would have much preferred that requirements not become necessary, too many people remain unvaccinated for us to get out of this pandemic for good,” he said Thursday in a statement.

Biden said his encouragement for businesses to impose mandates and his own previous requirements for the military and federal contractors have helped reduce the number of unvaccinated Americans over 12 from 100 million in late July to about 60 million now.

Reporting and writing from The Associated Press was used in this story.