Several business groups criticize rule

Several business groups expressed concern about President Joe Biden’s Covid vaccine mandate on Thursday, arguing that the requirements will burden businesses during the busy holiday season as they rush to meet an implementation deadline that comes shortly after New Year’s day. 

The mandate, which applies to businesses with 100 or more workers, requires U.S. companies to ensure their employees have gotten vaccinated, or face regular testing, by Jan. 4. 

However, all unvaccinated workers must start wearing masks indoors a month earlier on Dec. 5, according to the new rules issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, under the Labor Department.

OSHA will also conduct on-site workplace compliance inspections, with penalties for violating the rules ranging from $13,653 up to $136,532.

The National Retail Federation and the Retail Industry Leaders Association, which requested a 90-day implementation period during meetings with White House officials last month, said the mandate would burden their members during the busy holiday shopping season. 

“Since the president’s announcement of the vaccine mandate for private industry, the seven-day average number of cases in the United States has plummeted by more than half,” said David French, NRF’s senior vice president for government relations.

“Nevertheless, the Biden administration has chosen to declare an ’emergency’ and impose burdensome new requirements on retailers during the crucial holiday shopping season,” French said.

The Retail Industry Leaders Association called the implementation period “insufficient” and said the potential fines for noncompliance are “unnecessary and unhelpful,” warning that “it pits government against private employers instead of working with them to create a safe working environment.”

“While the mandate on private employers technically begins post-holiday, the planning time to design and implement the mandate will fall during the busiest part of the shopping season,” the association said in a statement on Thursday.

The National Federation of Independent Business said OSHA’s new mandate makes it “even more difficult and troublesome” for small-business owners to operate in an already challenging environment. 

“NFIB remains opposed to this rule that restricts the freedom of small business owners to decide how best to operate their own businesses and imposes unwarranted burdens on small businesses that further threaten the small business recovery,” said Karen Harned, executive director of NFIB’s Small Business Legal Center, in a statement Thursday. 

Senior administration officials said OSHA will help companies come into compliance with the mandate, by providing sample implementation plans, factsheets and other forms of outreach.

The Biden administration also pushed back the deadline for federal contractors to comply with a stricter set of vaccine requirements for staff to Jan. 4 from Dec. 8, to match the deadline set for other private companies and…