OSHA Issues Vaccine-or-Test Guidance

Following last week's order from the Sixth Circuit Court lifting the temporary pause of the national Vaccinate-or-Test Emergency Temporary Standards (ETS), OSHA has released this statement with additional guidance:

 

"To account for any uncertainty created by the stay, OSHA is exercising enforcement discretion with respect to the compliance dates of the ETS.

 

"To provide employers with sufficient time to come into compliance, OSHA will not issue citations for noncompliance with any requirements of the ETS before January 10 and will not issue citations for noncompliance with the standard’s testing requirements before February 9, so long as an employer is exercising reasonable, good faith efforts to come into compliance with the standard.

 

OSHA will work closely with the regulated community to provide compliance assistance."

 

Additionally, the American Trucking Associations (ATA) and a number of other groups have filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court seeking to reinstate the stay with the hope the vaccinate-or-test requirements will be paused again before the new January 10th deadline.

 

For now, OSHA has clarified that it does not expect employers to be in compliance with the requirement on the timeline it had originally specified.

 

If you have any questions, please reach out to Rich Pianka with ATA