Earlier today, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced that the NYC private employer vaccine mandate will be lifted and become optional on November 1, 2022.
Read MoreToday, Mayor De Blasio announced a major expansion to the Key to the City program. By December 27, all employees of private employers in NYC must receive one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. In a press conference earlier today, Mayor De Blasio emphasized the effectiveness of vaccines and the need to keep people safe and avoid further shut down measures as some of the reasons for this order. Mayor De Blasio stated that the administration would be speaking with local business over the next few days about how to implement this program, emphasizing that he wants to have a collaborative process.
Read MoreOn November 5th, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) published an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) requiring employers with 100 or more employees to implement policies either mandating vaccination or requiring employees to wear face coverings and engage in COVID-19 testing. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit initially stayed the ETS on November 6th, pending expedited judicial review. On November 12th, the Court reaffirmed their initial stay, finding that the challenges “show a great likelihood of success on the merits.” Specifically, the Court noted that “emergency temporary standards ‘are an unusual response to exceptional circumstances’”, and that this ETS “grossly exceeds OSHA’s statutory authority”.
Read MoreAs employers will recall, earlier this year President Biden announced a six-prong COVID-19 Action Plan, which, among other things, required all employers with 100 or more employees to ensure that their workers are vaccinated or periodically tested for COVID-19. Today, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”) issued an Emergency Temporary Standard (the “ETS”) implementing this requirement. Although the ETS imposes a variety of obligations on covered employers, most notably, employers with 100 or more employees are required to either establish a mandatory written vaccination policy for employees, or alternatively establish a written policy whereby unvaccinated employees submit to weekly COVID-19 testing and wear face coverings in the workplace.
Under the ETS, employees must either be fully vaccinated by January 4, 2022, or be subject to the testing requirements discussed below at that time. Other aspects of the ETS, including but not limited to the written policy requirement, face covering requirement, and the additional leave for vaccination and recovery from vaccine side effects, go into effect December 6, 2021.
Read MoreAs our clients are aware, New York employers should have already implemented their Airborne Infectious Disease Exposure Prevention Plan (the “Plan”) mandated under the HERO Act. Yesterday, the DOL revised the Model Plan on their website. The substantive revisions to the Model Plan concern two of the minimum controls: face coverings and physical distancing.
Read MoreOn Labor Day, Governor Hochul announced that the New York State Commissioner of Health has designated COVID-19 as a highly contagious communicable disease that presents a serious risk of harm to the public health under the New York State HERO Act. As such, all New York State employers must implement the HERO Act plans which they adopted earlier this month.
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