Sept. 10, 2021 -- In what many view as an attempt to deflect attention from his disastrous Afghanistan retreat, on Thursday, September 9, President Biden issued an order for all federal employees to be vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus (oddly excepting US Postal Service workers, which have a major union behind them and the ability to go on strike), as well as private businesses with more than 100 workers. Workers who decline to be vaccinated must be tested weekly, with a negative result.
In 2020, Biden claimed he would never mandate masks or vaccines.
The order was met with much scorn from constitutionalists who said the order can't possibly stand.
Other legal commentators said Biden is on a firm footing, citing the 1905 case of Jacobsen v. Massachusetts.
Keith Wilkes, a labor and employment partner/shareholder at the national law firm Hall Estill, said the emergency OSHA rule would affect more than 80 million private sector workers. He also questioned the hope some have in challenges to the order.
"Employers impacted by the new OSHA rule will be required to explore whether reasonable accommodation exists for those employees who seek refuge from the vaccination mandate because of a sincerely held religious belief, or a disability-based reason. Absent falling into one of those two categories, unvaccinated private sector employees who fall under this new rule will have no choice but to obtain full vaccination if they wish to keep their current job," Wilkes says.
"People are demoralized, panicked, furious, and even at the point of losing it completely over this despotic moment in which we are living," Tucker writes.