Courthouse News Service—Businesses all but assured that the Supreme Court would issue guidelines on the new federal vaccine-or-test mandate set to take effect Monday got only crickets, creating national confusion about policy that prompted the justices to hold a special session last week. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration announced the mandate in November, implicating approximately 84 million workers with a rule that says all large private businesses with over 100 employees would have to require mask wearing and weekly coronavirus testing for any worker not vaccinated against Covid-19. President Biden has championed the policy as essential to ending a pandemic that has killed over 800,000 Americans — logic to which Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan all appeared receptive at a rare session of oral arguments on the case Friday. The trio are in the minority, however, as their conservative colleagues questioned the federal government's authority to enforce the mandate. With no word from the court Monday, employers are scrambling to now implement mandate-compliant plans. The testing component of the mandate does not begin until Feb. 9, but starting Monday employers are required to start gathering employee vaccination statuses and require masking. The practical effect for employers is that they must now set up policies for tracking vaccination statuses, establish records on statuses to send to OSHA, give paid time off to employees to get vaccinated and recover from symptoms, and enforce mask wearing. Some employers might be rolling out these policies today, while others will continue await for a decision from the court. Michelle Strowhiro, a partner at McDermott Will &...
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