Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has blocked the Biden administration's vaccine-or-test rule for private employers, companies nationwide are faced with a decision: Go ahead with a vaccine mandate anyway, or abandon it.
No matter which path companies choose, backlash appears near certain.
This week, workwear company Carhartt became the latest example of the public tightrope employers must walk to balance the health and safety concerns of employees against staffing challenges, potential legal liability and customer blowback.
"Employers are between a rock and a hard place. You have a responsibility as an employer to provide a safe working environment for your employees. That's an incredibly subjective standard. It just got more subjective when you don't have the benefit of having a law to be able to point at," said David Lewis, the CEO of the human resources consulting firm OperationsInc.
On Friday, Carhartt CEO Mark Valade announced in an internal all-staff email that the company's vaccine mandate — which went into effect for most of Carhartt's 3,000 U.S.-based employees earlier this month — would stay in place despite the Supreme Court's decision. The mandate includes exceptions for religious and medical reasons.
"We put workplace safety at the very top of our priority list, and the Supreme Court's recent ruling doesn't impact that core value," Valade wrote. "An unvaccinated workforce is both a people and business risk that...
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