ALEXANDRIA, Va.—NACS has filed a brief opposing the Biden Administration’s emergency court motion with the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati to reinstate the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) requirement that private-sector businesses with 100 or more employees have all their workers vaccinated or tested weekly for COVID-19.
Shortly following OSHA’s ruling, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted an emergency stay temporarily halting enforcement of the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for private employers, citing “grave statutory and constitutional issues.”
In November, NACS joined with nearly a dozen state and national trade associations in suing OSHA over its COVID-19 vaccination and testing emergency temporary standard (ETS). The petitioners seek a stay of the effective date of the mandate pending court challenges and ask that the court vacate and set aside the ETS.
In the brief submitted yesterday to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, NACS joined with 25 other trade associations in responding to the Biden Administration’s emergency motion to dissolve the stay on the ETS.
“Lifting the stay would inflict irreparable harm upon the Business Associations’ members—hundreds of thousands of businesses across retail, wholesale, warehousing, transportation, travel, logistics, and commercial interests that collectively employ millions of Americans and contribute trillions of dollars annually to the Nation’s economy. It would impose substantial, nonrecoverable compliance costs on those businesses. It would devastate already fragile supply chains and labor markets at the peak holiday season,” the brief states.
The brief that NACS filed also includes a declaration from NACS Vice President of Research Lori Stillman—the first time her declaration has been filed in the case. (Lyle Beckwith, NACS senior vice president, government relations, submitted a declaration to the 5th Circuit in November when NACS joined in the lawsuit opposing the vaccine mandate.) Stillman cites a NACS survey of its members regarding the OSHA ETS. The survey found that 99% of the industry expects that some employees would quit their jobs rather than undergo vaccination, and that 92% of the industry expects that some employees would quit their jobs rather than undergo weekly testing for COVID-19.
The survey also found that c-store employers who indicated that employees would leave their jobs over the mandate expect that they would lose 32% of their staff.
The survey also finds that:
- 89% of employers in the industry would be forced to reduce store hours
- 58% would need to close one or more stores
- 57% would expect increased difficulty getting products to their stores
- 72% would need to reduce cleaning at one or more stores
- 93% would face increased difficulty hiring staff
- 47% would expect reduced customer traffic
Additionally, a U.S. district court has blocked the Biden Administration from requiring federal contractors to receive the vaccine, reports
CNBC. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia said that the president likely exceeded his authority. The court said the mandate is “costly, laborious and likely to result in a reduction in available members of the workforce.”