The employment law world was given a reminder by the U.S. Supreme Court this past week as to why the institution continues to reign supreme when it blocked the Biden administration's vaccine mandate for large private employers. See Biden v. Missouri and Becerra v. Louisiana, 595 U. S. ____ (2022) (decided January 13, 2022). The Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA's) emergency temporary standard (ETS) would have required businesses with at least 100 employees to ensure workers are vaccinated against COVID-19 or undergo weekly testing, by Feb. 9. The emergency measure was said to cover as many as 84 million Americans employed by large businesses. Will the decision lead to the court upholding other individual rights in other contexts?

How It Started

On Sept. 9, 2021, President Joe Biden announced "a new plan to require more Americans to be vaccinated." As part of that plan, the president said that the Department of Labor would issue an emergency rule requiring all employers with at least 100 employees "to ensure their workforces are fully vaccinated or show a negative test at least once a week." According to recent estimates, about 63% of the country is fully vaccinated. The Biden administration was counting on the ETS to compel an additional 20 million workers to get vaccinated by the deadline, while the current omicron strain continues to spread at a record pace.