Reconciliation Bill Includes $700,000 OSHA Fines for Not Enforcing Biden Vax Mandate
Clearly, Biden and his minions have no patience for those unwilling to be vaccinated.
Legal Insurrection readers will recall that to distract from the disastrous failure of Afghanistan, Biden ordered a Covid-19 vaccine mandate on companies employing 100 or more people.
The mandate is supposed to be enforced by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Now, Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s House has quietly tucked an OSHA enforcement mechanism into their $3.5 trillion “reconciliation” bill, passed it out of the Budget Committee, and sent it to the House floor.
Buried on page 168 of the House Democrats’ 2,465-page mega bill is a tenfold increase in fines for employers that “willfully,” “repeatedly,” or even seriously violate a section of labor law that deals with hazards, death, or serious physical harm to their employees.
The increased fines on employers could run as high as $70,000 for serious infractions, and $700,000 for willful or repeated violations—almost three-quarters of a million dollars for each fine. If enacted into law, vax enforcement could bankrupt non-compliant companies even more quickly than the $14,000 OSHA fine anticipated under Biden’s announced mandate.
To highlight exactly how little patience Biden and his minions have for those unwilling to be vaccinated, here is the current level of fines imposed by the federal agency.
There are worries that such fines could bankrupt companies, especially those already struggling with issues related to the pandemic.
The increased fines on employers could go as high as $70,000 for serious infractions, and $700,000 for wilful or repeated violations – a sum which can be applied to each instance of a violation rather than a total limit.
If enacted into law, the fines could rapidly bankrupt companies whose employees are not vaccinated, in effect forcing businesses to comply with Biden’s inoculation drive.
It comes after the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) published an emergency Covid-19 rule in the Federal Register this summer, which added Covid-19 to a list of possible workplace hazards for healthcare employment.
And while companies can fight penalties in court and get them reduced, especially if it is going to shutter the business, those cases take time and cost money to pursue. The better option is to let people choose whether to get the vaccine and then support the development and distribution of treatments.
Meanwhile, there have been fines already for failure to follow state and local COVID rules. One case involving a Los Angeles court is a good example.
An interpreter employed by the Los Angeles Superior Court died on Jan. 12, 2021 after contracting COVID-19 after an outbreak in a downtown courthouse. The next day, a lawyer for the interpreters’ union filed a complaint of unsafe work practices with the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, commonly known as Cal-OSHA. The complaint triggered Cal/OSHA to investigate, which is how many Cal/OSHA investigations begin.
On July 7, the agency notified the court of an intended $25,250 fine for workplace safety violations. A court spokeswoman told online legal publication Law 360 that the court disputes Cal/OSHA’s findings and will appeal. However, the matter is resolved, the case serves as an important reminder that the pandemic is not yet over and that employers face serious consequences for failing to follow the workplace safety rules still in place, both general regulations and COVID-19-specific regulations.
Cal/OSHA proposed a penalty of $5,000 for the court’s failure to immediately report the interpreter’s hospitalization for work-connected COVID-19. Employers are required to contact Cal/OSHA by email or phone no later than eight hours after the employer knows “or with diligent inquiry would have known” of “any serious injury or illness, or death, of an employee occurring in a place of employment or in connection with any employment,” whether for COVID-19 or any other workplace illness or injury. “Serious injury” includes any injury that “requires inpatient hospitalization for any period of time other than medical observation.”
If this is an example of the genius rules that are part of the $3.5 trillion monstrosity, I shudder to think what else may be in the budget plan.
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Comments
Remember, a liberal is someone who doesn’t care what you do as long as it’s mandatory.
The term “liberal” is a misnomer because liberals are anything but liberal.
I see more jobs going off shore.
You must have 20/20 vision.
They may go offshore but would that stop the Biden regime from mandating that any company that imports goods into the United States must vaccinate their workforce or face a ban on any imports.
I’ve no idea.
And look at the wide swing between the minimum and maximum penalty in each of the contrived categories.
This gives the teat-sucking bureaucrats the latitude to enforce this arbitrarily. You can bet your ass that the jack-booted motherfuckers will be looking at company political donation histories and enforcing this accordingly. A slap on the wrist for Dims…. a boot on the throat for “racist Trump supporters.”
We’re in full-blown Banana Republic territory now. When will the shooting start?
I work as a third-party contractor for Amazon and am salivating over the fight that lay ahead. I received the email yesterday informing us that this issue is currently being reviewed for compliance. I’ll have to be terminated, but that brings the next question up…will the government refuse you unemployment insurance benefits if you get terminated due to vaccine status?
Torches and Pitchforks, patriots!
…will the government refuse you unemployment insurance benefits if you get terminated due to vaccine status?
Yes. And democrat controlled states will also deny you state unemployment benefits if you are terminated due to your vaccine status. (Not sure what happens if you have a medically documented reason for not getting the vaccine (eg. allergic to an ingredient of the vaccine.)
Yes
Yes, ever since the DoL made covid an exception to HIPAA employers can demand your medical records to prove covid vaccination status and fire you if you refuse to divulge them. They can also refuse to hire anybody who isn’t vaccinated for covid, despite there being no available approved vaccine for it. I’m not convinced they have that authority, but nobody is challenging it.
Isn’t government protection great? They cajole you into joining a program by promising you that all your stuff will be perfectly secure. Then, after you’re in it, they just start declaring “exceptions” to your security. Hey, just like Mazzoli-Simpson!
When Social Security was first debated [in 1935] in the [Franklin D.] Roosevelt Administration, the president himself assured American citizens that a Social Security number would never be used for identification purposes.
–VIN SUPRYNOWICZ
FOR SOCIAL SECURITY PURPOSES ONLY — NOT FOR IDENTIFICATION.
–THE SOCIAL SECURITY CARD (1936-1972)
Hereafter any Federal department, establishment, or agency shall, whenever the head thereof finds it advisable to establish a new system of permanent account numbers pertaining to individual persons, utilize exclusively the Social Security Act account numbers…
–EXECUTIVE ORDER 9397, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT (1943)
We have to accept that the Social Security number is the de facto national identifier and its use by government agencies at all levels and the private sector is too embedded to change.
–JAMES G. HUSE JR, INSPECTOR GENERAL, SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION (2001)
+1 on the Second Amendment solution.
There are many silly quotes to use, but I’ll say this:
You have yet to see what a real can of “Whoop-ass” looks like, and you will soon taste it.
Ssshhhh. Torches and pitchforks are just the diversion.
That seems like an example of an ‘excessive’ fine and unlikely to be upheld upon challenge. Another example of the d/progressive lack of commitment to the constitutional order, norms and traditions. When it benefits them they cleave to them, when inconvenient to implementing their agenda they are tossed aside.
Turnabout when r regain control is most assuredly fair play. No whining from d/progressive, their media allies or pearl clutching r should be entertained. Do exactly what they do plus 20% further. Be more ruthless and more resolved to not only win a majority but actually govern as a majority once it is attained.
I’m pretty sure that this is just “Sabre-rattling” at the moment, but I trust them about as much as I trust farting after being on Amoxicillin for three days and eating nothing but yogurt for two days….and taking Metformin to control type II diabetes.
I wouldn’t rely on the courts.
Roberts can declare it’s a tax.
I agree. If you are counting on the Federal courts, you will almost certainly be disappointed.
Meh. If the CT wants to create a precedent for $700,000 fines by an executive branch agency fine by me so long as everyone understands that sharp stick can be used to stab by a future r administration as well. Our job then becomes electing a POTUS who will gleefully do so to our political opponents as well as Senators and HoR who fully support the payback as a punitive necessity.
“Turnabout when r regain control is most assuredly fair play.”
But will never happen, because Rs don’t have the necessary balls.
Liberals this is a DICTATORSHIP.
Why not make it $7 million? Or $70 million?
Whatever it takes to destroy the lives of people and businesses that defy the dictates of Führer Biden and The Regime.
Well hey, at least we aren’t subjected to “mean tweets”….. 🙄
most osha fines are contested and negotiated down to a much lower number, we’ll have to see if they try to actually enforce it and what fine they try to assess and then settle for if it ever got to that point.
Fascism with a stick, will some company instead of taking a big fine fight it? One should think a court would shut this down but we know courts are not on the conservative side anymore.
For four years, the left shrieked, “Fascism!!” at the top of their lungs but once they get their authoritarian thugs into office, it’s crickets from them.
Narcissitic brats do that. And their handlers get rich.
As frustrated with the useful idiotcy of the left that are, we have to look at ourselves: who do we elected, over and over and over and over and over: McConnells; McCains; Grahams; Bush’s; etc. Who do we put in charge of our political party? – the likes of Rona Romney.
WHERE THE HELL IS GOP CHAIR RONA ROMNEY????????
The approved vaccine is not available, because Pfizer doesn’t have immunity. The experimental vaccines are required by law to pulled when a vaccine is approved. The experimental vaccines are illegal, and it is illegal to accept one. Children’s Health Defense is suing over this law being broke, but the Justice Department is supposed reign in illegal maneuvers by the government. This illegal activity is also tainted with big bucks going to government employees who are breaking the law.
Pfizer says their vaccine was never fully approved. Only the White House said that.
Falling under the mantle of “Our Body, Our Choice”, I fully expect anti-abortion activists to be all over the legal arguments for a vaccine mandate, taking what works for the next anti-abortion law.
Biden was a fool to go in this direction.