Category Archives: Covid-19

OSHA’s Vaccine Mandate Moving Forward

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Late Friday afternoon a three judge panel in the Sixth Circuit lifted the stay on the Biden Administration’s Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS). The ETS has a number of ongoing law suits and a Federal appeals court placed a stay on the rule before it even got going. Now the Sixth Circuit has lifted that stay and the rule may proceed.

For review, this vaccine mandate only applies to employers with 100 or more employees company wide. OSHA has said it will use it’s enforcement discretion for this rule. OSHA will begin enforcing the rule on January 10 with a February 9 deadline for the vaccine or test requirements.

More will follow after we have a chance to digest this ruling. This is likely not the end of this and we will continue to see how this unfolds. If you have or have had more than 100 employees since November 5 (original date of rule) you will need to move forward with your compliance activities.

More to come

DSF

OSHA Vaccine Mandate Slowed/Stopped

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As I mentioned in last weeks article, the OSHA Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) situation changes nearly every day. And that is indeed the case. Since I last wrote about this, the Fifth Circuit Stayed enforcement and implementation of the rule pending other cases.

The Circuit was the first to put an emergency stay on the rule on November 6. A week later it had heard arguments from both sides and said the stay would remain until a full hearing and final decision was made. That decision will likely come from the court selected to hear all the cases that have been filed as a consolidated case. Which court that will be is to be determined later this week.

Since multiple cases have been filed in multiple courts of appeals, OSHA as requested that they be consolidated. The move means the US Judicial Panel on Multijurisdictional Litigation will draw single court to hear the joint case. The lottery is currently scheduled for tomorrow the 16th of November.

Since this court has completely stayed the enforcement and implementation of the rule, this means that the December and January deadlines are likely not going to remain as they are. The court will likely lay out a time for arguments shortly after being selected but will give time for the litigants to work on their briefs as a group. While last week we expected to the process would be done by Thanksgiving, it seems pretty unlikely and not by the December 4 deadline.

What should you be doing Now.

I would still try to figure out whether the 100 employee minimum has any chance of touching you. If you MAY be under this rule, I would go ahead and be looking at making the decision on vaccine mandate or vaccine plus testing and get those decisions out of the way. If you will NOT be affected by this rule, as written, remember that OSHA is seeking comments on a permanent rule. They seem to have every intent on making this permanent and as broad as possible.

Just because the rule may not directly apply to you, you should have policies and procedures in place to help minimize the spread in your operation and/or housing. Whether you require vaccines, help people get vaccinated by working with a local health department or whatever, require masks, or whatever, you should be doing the steps necessary to keep your whole gin from going down at once. If you have an outbreak your goal is to keep it from taking the entire crew or office out. (That’s a lot easier said than done but that’s the goal.

More to come

COVID Isn’t Over….Unfortunately

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As vaccines have been rolling out and availability has expanded, many or most of our customers and employees have developed some immunity but we can’t drop the procedures just yet. We have OSHA to deal with and they’ve stepped it up a notch and probably have more to come.

President Biden promised a Emergency Temporary Standard by March 15th. Well that didn’t quite happen but OSHA has circulated a draft internally from well informed reports. In its place, they published a national emphasis program for targeted industries. Cotton gins and agriculture in general is not in the targeted group but don’t be surprised if you have to answer questions about Covid procedures and protocols if you have to have an interaction with OSHA for the foreseeable future.

While life for most of cotton country is getting back to a semblance of ‘normal’ we need to be aware that this will have a long tail I’m afraid. We should expect to have outbreaks and rules and regs lingering. We still have people working for us out there that have underlying conditions and have not had covid or been vaccinated. We need to do what we can to help protect them at least while they’re at work.

To get a hint of what will likely be in a “temporary standard” please go to https://www.osha.gov/coronavirus/safework. Virginia is one of the first State Plan States to have a permanent standard for Covid. We’ve written about this previously and as we get a better picture on enforcement in Virginia, we’ll likely write about it again.

As we get into repair season, lets do our best to keep Covid out of the gin and keep our year-round employees safe.

DSF

NCGA Hosting Webinar on Covid-19 Compliance Issues

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The National Cotton Ginners Association (NCGA) is hosting a webinar specifically on Covid-19 and compliance issues surrounding the ever changing world of what we should be doing. Travis Vance with the firm Fisher and Phillips will lead the webinar. All cotton Ginners are invited to take part. The link for the free webinar is https://cotton.zoom.us/j/99549992735. To log-in manually, the meeting ID is: 995 4999 2735

All ginners are encouraged to attend this webinar. This topic was very popular at the recent NCGA issues webinar and many requests came in for more information and a webinar on this single subject. The meeting will be August 11 at 3 PM Eastern time (2 PM Central) and should last about 2 hours. Give us a call if you need the full invitation information.

DSF

Covid-19 Links Page

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OSHA’s approach to Covid illness in the workplace has …. evolved…. over time. As of now there are no hard rules set to address covid and covid like illness but over time, OSHA and some state’s workers comp (such as California) say that Covid can be a work related illness if a reasonable person can expect the exposure that caused the illness came from the work place.

Although no citations that we’re aware of at the moment have been issued, it seems logical that at some point osha will look at widespread outbreaks of Covid as something to investigate. The General Duty Clause is a catch-all piece of OSHA law that can be cited in the absence of other standards. If an outbreak happens, and a complaint occurs, it is possible for OSHA to look at whether or not an employer has done anything to help stop the virus.

To that end, we’re urging you to take a look at our HELPFUL Covid Links page. This is NOT a comprehensive list of resources… far from it. It is just a good starting place to start work on this issue. No one can prescribe the things each employer needs to do to address this but some attention needs to be made and remember… if it didn’t happen on paper, it didn’t happen. Develop a plan, write it down and follow it.