Hartford Business Journal

14 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | FEBRUARY 14, 2022 Many CT businesses breathe 'sigh of relief' after federal vaccine mandate is withdrawn Yale School of Medicine professor Onyema Ogbuagu gets a COVID-19 vaccination at Yale New Haven Hospital. By Skyler Frazer sfrazer@hartfordbusiness.com F ollowing the Biden administration's withdrawal last month of a COVID-19 vaccine and testing mandate, many larger Connecticut employers are relieved they won't have to comply, especially amid a tight labor market that has seen a record number of workers quit their jobs in recent months, employment lawyers said. "Employers have been struggling with this," said Glenn Dowd, a partner in Hartford law firm Day Pitney's labor and employment practice. "It's very unpopular with a segment of the workforce, and the workforce is really important right now." Dowd and others said that when vaccines were first made available, employers had two schools of thought: implement a mandate, or play it by ear based on workers' receptiveness to the shots. Now, with the U.S. Supreme Court striking down vaccine and testing rules, Dowd said he expects companies with existing mandates to keep them, at least for now, and businesses without requirements to not put them in place. Of the 625 Connecticut employers polled last fall by accounting firm Marcum and the Connecticut Business & Industry Association, 37% said they opposed government vaccine mandates. "In our mind it's better left to us," Connecticut Construction Industries Association President Donald Shubert said of vaccination rules. "It's just normal for us to adjust to job-specific requirements." Mandate withdrawal On Jan. 25, the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced it was withdrawing the COVID-19 vaccination and testing standards issued in November. The emergency mandate required businesses with 100 or more employees to have their workers get vaccinated, or mask up and submit to weekly testing. The withdrawal came after the U.S. Supreme Court voted to block the federal mandate. At the same time, the court upheld Biden's vaccination requirement for healthcare workers like doctors, nurses and others who work in certain medical facilities. "That's one interesting aspect of the ruling," said Patricia Reilly, a partner at law firm Murtha Cullina. "The broad ruling applicable to all employers with 100 or more employees was blocked, but the separate rule with a more limited mandate that requires healthcare workers at facilities receiving federal money like Medicare or Medicaid, that's upheld." Reilly said she heard a big "sigh of relief," from many of her large employer clients following the Supreme Court decision, but she also represents healthcare providers that must comply with the vaccine mandate, which has created some industry strain. "There are severe labor shortages in health care right now, so there's a lot of tension around this," Reilly said. "The labor shortage does not supersede the requirement that you have to be vaccinated." Even before the federal mandate, Dowd said employers were considering their own worker safety rules and protocols. Dowd and Reilly said that some businesses went ahead and implemented their own vaccine or test protocols, unless employees applied for medical or religious exemptions. "That was probably 75% of employers that looked at that," Dowd said. For example, Pomfret aerospace and medical manufacturer Loos & Co. issued a vaccine mandate last summer, and said in November that 100% of its workforce was fully inoculated. Loos & Co. said, as a result of its mandate, that it lost about eight people out of around 270 employees who chose not to get vaccinated and left the business. Middletown-based Liberty Bank also instituted a vaccine mandate last fall, just as it was requiring many of its workers to return to the office. Other companies didn't take a hard-line stance on the issue, Dowd said. Some surveyed employees to find out if they were or planned to be vaccinated, and if the percentage of vaccinated workers was high enough companies didn't feel they needed a mandate. "We're in a time period where finding employees is difficult," Dowd said. "Workers are at a premium now, Glenn Dowd Patricia Reilly PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED

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