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Yes, companies with 100 or more employees must enforce vaccine mandate

Employers must count employees who work exclusively remote in employee total

WASHINGTON — New guidelines came down Thursday for employers regarding enforcing the federal vaccine mandate from The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health (OSHA).

The goal is to get more Americans vaccinated by requiring employers to enforce a vaccination policy by Jan. 4, 2022.

OSHA broke down how this will impact employers across the country.

According to this rule, employers must require their staff to be vaccinated or adopt a policy requiring employees to choose to undergo regular COVID-19 testing and wear a mask at work. The rule does not require employers to pay for testing or face masks.

Sources

  • OSHA's press release 
  • Frequently asked questions on their OSHA's website

The Question:

Is the count based on 100 employees for the entire business or 100 employees per location?

The Answer:

The answer is the entire company. If a single corporation has 50 small locations, with at least 100 employees in its combined locations, that employer would need to follow the OSHA vaccine mandate.

The Question:

How will temporary and seasonal workers be addressed in the employee count?

The Answer:

Temporary and seasonal workers who are employed directly by the company should be counted. Seasonal workers hired by a temp agency, OSHA said, are not a part of that count, but if you work for a temp agency, you could be a part of their 100-count.

The Question:

Employers are mandated to provide paid company time for you to get vaccinated, but can they set a cap on the recovery time from side effects for the vaccine?

The Answer:

Yes, employers are required to provide reasonable time and paid sick leave to employees to recover from side effects experienced following a primary vaccination dose, but the standard does not specify the amount of paid sick leave that the employer is required to provide for that purpose. Employers may set a cap on the amount of paid sick leave available to employees to recover from any side effects, but the cap must be reasonable.

The Question:

Do employees working from home count towards a company's 100 employees or not?

The Answer:

The answer is, yes. If you’re an employer with 150 employees and 100 of them work at home full time and 50 of them work in the office, yes, you fall in the guidelines for this mandate. But, it would only apply to the 50 employees who work at the physical location of the business and the employees who are 100% working remotely at their homes.

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