OSHA Risks Defying Supreme Court by Not Withdrawing the Illegal Vaccine Mandate: Job Creators Network Responds in Wall Street Journal Ad, Letter to OSHA

Washington, DC – (January 19, 2022) — Today, the Job Creators Network (JCN) is running an ad in the Wall Street Journal as a letter to President Biden and Labor Secretary Walsh. The letter is JCN and small businesses’ response to the Department of Labor and the OSHA’s request for public comment on their proposal to convert the COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) into a permanent standard (to see the ad, click here). 

Alfredo Ortiz, JCN president and CEO, released the following statement:

“The American people deserve answers for why OSHA has still not withdrawn its vaccine mandate—which was declared illegal by the Supreme Court last week in a 6-3 vote. For almost a year, JCN has been warning about the Biden Administration’s ‘War on Small Businesses,’ which included OSHA’s push for a vaccine mandate. Now, if OSHA moves forward after the nation’s highest court has told them unambiguously to stop, we are dealing with not just terrible public policy, we are dealing with a significant threat to the rule of law.  The employer mandate would have an outsized impact on small businesses at a time when they are suffering from record inflation, supply chain crisis and historical labor shortages.  OSHA is exacerbating those challenges by looking for legal loopholes to enact an unpopular and illegal mandate. Our message to OSHA: ‘WITHDRAW THE MANDATE.”

“On every single issue at the Supreme Court, Job Creators Network won—and OSHA lost,” Mr. Ortiz writes in the letter. “OSHA should do the right thing: withdraw the ETS immediately and scrap plans to issue any future standard on vaccines or testing,”

My Ortiz goes on to describe four of JCN’s key arguments:

1. OSHA lacks statutory authority to issue a general regulation aimed at a non-occupational hazard like COVID-19.
2. OSHA lacks statutory authority to issue a regulation aimed at so many individuals (over 80 million Americans).
3. A de facto vaccine mandate is beyond OSHA’s authority, on the basis that vaccines are “strikingly unlike” other OSHA requirements.
4. Because these key premises of the ETS have been rejected by the Supreme Court, any OSHA standard arising out of the ETS could not be a logical outgrowth of the ETS itself.

“After such a decisive loss at the Supreme Court, OSHA should stand back and let America’s small businesses give the nation’s economy a much-needed boost to help with struggling supply chains and worker shortages,” Mr. Ortiz continues. “But if OSHA insists on moving forward with more harmful mandates, Job Creators Network stands ready to sue OSHA again—and will prevail again.”