This week a judge in Georgia issued a preliminary injunction against Executive Order 14042, halting across the country the requirement for federal contractors to prove their workers are vaccinated. In November, the Fifth Circuit permanently blocked the OSHA requirement that companies employing more than 100 people institute workplace vaccine passports.
Either rule could return—President Biden’s administration will continue to fight for them. But as I write this, big companies that both sell to the federal government and employ many people are now free to do as they like. They may fire or keep us dissenters.
Will they fire us?
My employer says it doesn’t want to:
Our objective is to retain all [Company] colleagues—we do not want to lose anyone over this mandate... Because the government is a significant customer for us, adopting the vaccine mandate is a necessary step to protect the business…
But what have corporations done since September?
They hired third-party compliance firms to track new personal information online.
They demanded all their employees upload their personal data. The deadline to do so has already passed. Many employees complied unwillingly.
They ran internal marketing campaigns to pitch “safety” in the workplace.
They identified non-compliant employees and prepared to fire them, originally on December 8, and later on January 4.
They cultivated an environment in which some employees dutifully and openly asserted they are afraid to work with non-compliant (“irresponsible” and “dangerous”) colleagues.
Corporations are invested in this now. It’s already in motion. A serious shove is needed to propel big companies. The government shoved boldly, ignoring the separation of powers and (again!) the tenth amendment.
Once these big institutions are in motion, however, it takes an equally great force to stop them. The courts’ injunctions—though the right response—are hardly a force at all. A huge freight train is hurtling forward, about to blow past the January 4 milestone, and the courts have effectively said “Until we work this out, you may choose to back off the throttle.”
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As an example, consider our annual raises and bonuses. Big companies set budgets for compensation by department: when one employee gets more, another gets less. The purpose of a raise or bonus is to motivate an employee. My company recently worked out its numbers, but I haven’t yet been told my own share.
I wonder…having known that I would be fired on January 4, how much of his budget did my boss allocate to motivating my performance next year? I know what I would have done in his shoes.
By genuflecting to an illegal policy at once, companies have put themselves in a tough spot. According to the National Law Review:
Contractors…will want to consider whether to institute a complete stop or move forward based on the employer’s own business decision to require vaccinations… Contractors moving forward with vaccination programs must be particularly mindful, however, of the dozen or so state laws that do or may conflict with the requirements of EO 14042.
Ah, yes. Those pesky state laws that actually proscribe workplace vaccine passports. What will happen when they are challenged in court? Meanwhile, will they just fire me?