White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday that federal employees will be given “about 75 days” to become fully vaccinated. The mandate will have “limited exceptions” for medical or religious reasons, she said. Employees who refuse to comply will face disciplinary action that is likely to vary among agencies, depending on what is laid out in their collective-bargaining agreements. Union officials said they hope any discipline to start with written warnings and progress to suspensions without pay — and possible dismissals.
And this just feeds into the Trump stuff. This is a pandemic, right? This is why we are taking such an extraordinary step. So why 75 days? Nope, this week. Why over two months?
It also “varies among agencies” depending on “collective bargaining agreements.” So Covid respects your union status?
Further, if you fail to get a vaccine, we call you into the office to issue you a written warning. Fire people if you are serious about this.
Even idiot redneck Trump supporters see that Biden isn’t really serious about this or else he wouldn’t have so many holes in it.
Historically, U.S. states have laws for public health emergencies and invoke them if there is an epidemic. The difference here is that the federal government is attempting to do what the states should have all done months ago.
Getting written up will be enough to get compliance well past 90 percent — I’d think past 95 percent. Complying with negotiated progressive discipline contract provisions — effectively means you almost always have to be given a second chance — will not, I’d think, much affect the rate of employee vaccine uptake.
Firing is not the goal, since the unvaccinated individual is then still walking around all of us.
Also, they can write someone up a lot quicker than they can fire them.
That hits at the heart of it. In the past year they have told people to close their businesses. They can’t go to bars or restaurants. They can’t attend church or freely assemble. Can’t have extended family over for holidays. This is that serious. We can suspend the Constitution, but not Union Contracts! No, siree! Far too important.
That sounds like you have an issue with the concept of the OSHA in general. It is an entity that can regulate safety in the workplace. And it is part of the executive branch of the federal government, which means its boss is the president. So, ultimatley, everything that OSHA covers comes from the authority of the president.
The issue with your hypothetical hamburger ruling is that it would be hard to prove that it was in fact a safety measure. It’s not hard at all to argue that requiring vaccinations is a safety measure, as it’s a safety measure companies have been taking for over a century. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if there are other vaccine mandates in OSHA.
I don’t think Biden suspended the Constitution. But it will be up to the Supreme Court to decide. If he doesn’t comply, instead acting like many dual-system southern school districts that didn’t comply with Brown until 1970, you will be right. But I think he will comply if he loses cases the outcome of which we now do not know.
As for union contracts that typically, with varying language, require negotiating before changing conditions of employment, there is a good case that he is violating many of them. He’s not violating every possible contract clause, but he is violating some. He’s probably doing as much violating as he can get away with (and he can get away with a lot, because most union members prefer that co-workers are vaccinated).
Maybe I am wrong, but I think that getting written up might be approximately as effective as threatened firing. There is a chance that getting written up will lead to vaccination and that an inevitably drawn out firing threat will not.
Well, what should be the backup plan if states are fucking up the task of dealing with a massive public health catastrophe, the consequences of which impact not only their citizens but citizens of other states as well?
If the states that are encouraging resistance to vaccination and mask use were actually being successful in getting COVID under control by some other means, I’d be all against Biden trying to use executive authority to force them into promoting vaccination and mask use.
But they’re not being successful. They’re being a fucking disaster and needlessly killing and sickening their own people by the tens of thousands. How much massively destructive cynical misgovernance are we as a nation required to put up with in the name of states’ rights?
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. Those pesky Amendments!
How remarkable that this didn’t occur to you as an objection to Presidential executive orders during the previous four years.
And I repeat my question: What should be the backup plan if states are fucking up the task of dealing with a massive public health catastrophe, the consequences of which impact not only their citizens but citizens of other states as well? Just shrug your shoulders and say “sure, go on irresponsibly killing people in your mishandling of the worst pandemic in a century”?
That’s what a representative democracy is: sometimes bad laws are enacted or good ones not. Your argument seems to be that democracy is a contingent process. We let the people govern themselves, that is until I personally believe they have made a mistake, at which point we go to a dictatorship so me and my people (who we all know are always right) get to enact policy.
Your subsidiary position that I infer is that okay, I might let you slide on “minor” stuff, but this thing here is very, very important so the usual rules are suspended. Yes, but that is how every dictatorship in history has started. There is always an important issue that is claimed for excesses of power.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m probably more disappointed that you that people on my side have their heads up their asses on this issue and won’t take a free vaccine. I’m not there yet, but I may be convinced to support mandatory vaccination. But that debate, like everything in a free society, should not be dictated from on high, especially under a law for an “emergency.” This has been going on for 18 months. The legislatures have all met or are meeting. Congress is meeting now. This is not an emergency. We can enact this policy the right way.
I’ve objected to it for years, if I may slightly digress. IMHO, it is a way for your congressman or state legislator to smile, shake your hand, tell you he supports the Second Amendment, School Choice, a Woman’s Right to Choose, or whatever the issue du jour in your area is without having to make tough choices. A vaccine mandate would alienate half of his voters. So he wants someone else to make the choice.
The first way this was handled was in giant omnibus bills. “Yes, good citizen, I did not want to vote for that gun bill, but it was tied to the budget, so I had no choice.” Now, they just allow the executive to dictate the law. IMHO, this is very troubling for representative democracy and needs to stop.
Maybe I’m an idealist, but the thought is that we hire congressman and legislators to make those decisions and not to pass the buck while the legislator smiles and the latest ribbon cutting ceremony.