Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh, the Biden administration official overseeing Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) vaccine mandate for large businesses, claimed on Thursday that the rule “isn’t a mandate.” He added that those concerned about the federal government forcing people to take a vaccine that they do not want to take should “take a deep breath” because the government just wants “to make sure they’re safe.”
“Quite honestly, I think a lot of the companies already with 100 or more employees already have some type of vaccine program, and a lot of times, it’s a mandate,” Secretary Walsh said. “This isn’t a mandate. This is a vaccine or testing. And I think that that’s something that a lot of the people who are anti-vaccine and saying they don’t want it — I want you to take a deep breath and hear what I’m saying here, because I think it’s really important to understand. It is about keeping people safe, including folks that don’t want to get vaccinated, to make sure that they’re safe.”
"This isn't a mandate — this is a vaccine or testing," Labor Sec. Walsh says on new OSHA standard for vaccine or testing requirements. "It is about keeping people safe, including folks that don't want to get vaccinated, to make sure that they're safe." pic.twitter.com/aiQYQ6YuNe
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) November 5, 2021
In the Biden administration’s announcement of the mandate, instead of the word mandate, they use the synonym “requirement.” The announcement said, “the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is announcing the details of a requirement for employers with 100 or more employees to ensure each of their workers is fully vaccinated or tests for COVID-19 on at least a weekly basis.”
However, the OSHA’s regulation – which was published in the Federal Register on Friday – clarifies that the regulation is, in fact, “mandatory.” OSHA’s summary of the mandate explains that businesses employing more than 100 people must “develop, implement, and enforce a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy, with an exception for employers that instead adopt a policy requiring employees to either get vaccinated or elect to undergo regular COVID-19 testing and wear a face covering at work in lieu of vaccination.”
