Louisiana business groups expressed relief after last week’s U.S. Supreme Court decision blocking the Biden administration from implementing its rule requiring 84 million workers to get the COVID-19 vaccine or face a testing regimen.
The court issued its opinion blocking the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s vaccine mandate. The vaccine-or-test mandate, which would have affected employers with at least 100 workers, represented an action that neither OSHA nor Congress has ever imposed before, the court said.
“The secretary (of the Department of Labor) has ordered 84 million Americans to either obtain a COVID-19 vaccine or undergo weekly medical testing at their own expense,” the court’s Jan. 13 opinion states. “This is no ‘everyday exercise of federal power.’ It is instead a significant encroachment into the lives – and health – of a vast number of employees.”
The federal law underpinning OSHA’s powers does not provide the authority to issue such a vaccine mandate, according to the court.
“The act’s provisions typically speak to hazards that employees face at work,” the opinion says. “And no provision of the act addresses public health more generally, which falls outside of OSHA’s sphere of expertise.”
Dawn Starns McVea, senior state director of the National Federation of Independent Business in Louisiana, expressed thanks that the court struck down the mandate.
“Some small businesses may (still) choose to ask their employees to get vaccinated and boosted, but that's their decision,” McVea said in an email to the Louisiana Record. “... It's been a tough couple of years for Louisiana's small businesses, beginning with the pandemic and continuing with the labor shortage, supply chain disruptions and, now, inflation. The last thing owners need is another federal mandate that's well-intended but would only create additional confusion and disruptions at their businesses.”
Stephen Waguespack, president and CEO of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, expressed similar comments about the legal ruling.
“The unconstitutional vaccine-or-test rules this administration put forward through OSHA would have put a massive burden on companies when many on Main Street are still recovering from the pandemic-induced economic shutdown and struggling to find workers,” Waguespack said in a prepared statement. “While we encourage everyone to consult with their doctor about getting vaccinated, there’s no doubt that a one-size-fits-all approach is the wrong one.”
Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, who filed several lawsuits against vaccine mandates, expressed disappointment that the high court did not strike down the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate for health care professionals last week. But he hailed the end of the OSHA mandate.
“I am ecstatic the Supreme Court agreed with us and upheld our victory at the Fifth Circuit over OSHA’s mandate on private businesses,” Landry said in a prepared statement.