President Joe Biden’s promised vaccine mandate requirement for some businesses became reality Friday and has the potential to affect hundreds of county residents.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued an Emergency Temporary Standard requiring private businesses employing 100 or more people to mandate either COVID-19 vaccinations or weekly testing and mandatory masks for all employees.

Masks will be required of all unvaccinated employees in those companies beginning Dec. 5 and those employees not fully vaccinated by Jan. 4 will be required to submit to weekly testing.

Employees are considered “fully vaccinated” two weeks after the last required dose of whichever vaccine they choose. Boosters are not required under the OSHA regulation.

OSHA estimates the mandate will affect two-thirds of the nation’s private sector employees – about 84 million, including an estimated 31 million who are currently unvaccinated.

The regulation expressly preempts state or local requirements that ban or limit an employer from requiring vaccinations, face coverings or testing of its employees.

State Response

Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor filed a federal lawsuit Friday on behalf of the state challenging the constitutionality of the OSHA regulation.

See the related story on Page 13 outlining the state’s lawsuit, joined by six other states.

“Biden’s vaccine mandates are a clear abuse of power. He does not have the authority to make healthcare decisions for Oklahomans,” O’Connor said.

“It is sinister that Biden is threatening Oklahomans with the loss of their jobs if they do not surrender their personal rights and freedoms to the federal government. The President is using private employers to do his dirty work.”

But unless federal appeals court issues the requested injunction halting implementation of the emergency standard, the required mandates will take effect while the challenge wends its way through the court system.

Legislation enacted last session created the State Reserved Powers Unit in the AG’s office and appropriated $10 million to fund state legal challenges of federal actions.

Federal regulations promulgated by OSHA and other executive agencies do not require congressional approval.

Extensive Local Impact

The sweeping regulation counts the number employed company-wide, rather than at individual idual locations, and counts each individual ividual worker, including parttime and temporary.

Contract workers who are not employed ed directly by an entity are not counted and the mandate does not apply to employees working remotely or those who work exclusively outdoors.

Pioneer Telephone Cooperative, with more than 500 employees across its multicounty system, falls under the requirement.

Pioneer spokesperson Cindy Gore told the Times & Free Press Thursday that management was still in discussion as to how the cooperative will respond to the new mandate.

Cimarron Electric Cooperative, which employs only 48 people and relies extensively on contract labor, lb does not fll fall under the new regulation, CEO Mark Snowden said Thursday.

Employees of local businesses owned by larger parent companies also will be impacted. Among those are Love’s (27,000 employees), Walmart (1.6 million nationwide), Braum’s (10,000), Casey’s General Store (37,153), and United Supermarket (more than 16,000).

Minors working for those businesses also would be subject to the vaccine-or-test requirement. Other local chain restaurants such as McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, Sonic, Boom-a-rang and KFC/Taco Bell are independently owned franchises and would not fall under the regulation.

Temtrol (Nortek Air Solutions), which employs just over 100 people at its Okarche location according to the latest internet data, also likely will be affected.

(The Times & Free Press had received no response by press time Friday to an email sent to Nortek management.)

Schools, City Exempt

Public school districts and other state and local government entities are not subject to OSHA regulations, including the new vaccine mandate.

Kingfisher’s 77-person staff would be under the threshold regardless, City Manager Dave Slezickey said.

Kingfisher Public Schools employs just under 200 personnel but also is exempt from the mandate, Superintendent Dr. Daniel Craig said.

However, employees of the U.S. Postal Service would fall under the mandate because it is treated as a private employer.

Economic Impact

Businesses which fall under the regulation will be required to keep records documenting the vaccination status of every employee as well as weekly testing records for employees who choose not to be vaccinated.

Businesses also are required to provide up to four hours of paid time off for employees to be vaccinated and allow a reasonable amount of sick leave for any side effects, if they fall under the regulation.

And businesses who fail to implement or enforce the regulation can be subjected to a fine of $13,653 per violation, a senior administration official said in a press call Wednesday.

The fines for violations deemed “willful” can be up to 10 times that amount, the official said.

“It is unknown whether Oklahoma or any state would fully recover from this reckless mandate’s economic impact,” the state attorney general’s office said in a news release issued Thursday.

Meanwhile, employees who choose not to be vaccinated will bear the cost of weekly testing, unless their employers voluntarily cover that expense.

The regulation also allows employers to mandate vaccinations across the board, without offering the option of wearing masks and testing weekly for those who choose not to be vaccinated.

The mandate will directly cause many hardworking, unvaccinated Oklahoman employees to lose their jobs, the AG’s office said.

“How can they pay their mortgages and car payments? Then, months from now Biden and the democratic Congress will dole out trillions of dollars to support the people Biden drove out of the workforce,” O’Connor said.