Business leaders usually don’t like federal mandates, but some of them are applauding President Joe Biden for pushing their employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
“The devil’s in the details, but it’s a step in the right direction,” Thom Kuhn, president of construction company Millstone Weber, said after Biden announced that all companies with more than 100 employees must require their workers to be vaccinated or test them weekly. The president also will require all employees of federal contractors to be vaccinated, with no testing option.
The construction industry has conducted local and national information campaigns to encourage vaccinations, but with limited success. In surveys by Carnegie-Mellon University researchers, construction workers had the lowest vaccination rates and highest hesitancy rates of any occupation. As of July, 57% of them had gotten shots, compared with 82% in all other industries.
People are also reading…
“We’ve tried, we’ve done all we can, and a little bigger hammer is not a bad thing,” Kuhn said of the federal mandate.
Drilling Service Co. in Bridgeton is below the 100-employee threshold, but Executive Vice President Jeffrey Murphy said its work on highway projects might fall under the contractor rule. Murphy sees the need for the mandate, but worries that it might cost his firm some workers.
“Our crews are like family,” he said. “It will be hard to tell them, ‘You have to do this or else.’”
Al Bond, secretary treasurer of the St. Louis-Kansas City Carpenters Regional Council, estimated that just half of his members are vaccinated. The council already mandates shots for its 225 employees and for members who use its training facilities.
Bond has talked to employers who are hesitant to require vaccinations because construction is booming right now and workers are in short supply. “I tell contractors the only way this is going to stop is if you all mandate it,” he said.
Biden’s order will accomplish that, at least for large companies.
But Ann Marie Dale, a Washington University professor of medicine, isn’t sure the mandate will boost the construction industry’s vaccination rate. “This group is more hesitant than most,” she said. “I think they’re going to have trouble getting these workers vaccinated.”
Robert Griggs, president of steel pipe maker Trinity Products in St. Charles, also doubts he can convince all of his 175 employees to roll up their sleeves.
After Trinity had about 30 employees infected by the COVID-19 delta variant, it set up a prize drawing in which vaccinated employees could win up to $5,000. Only 25 people entered, and Griggs isn’t sure the government-wielded stick will work much better than his carrot did.
“I guess we will just have to set up weekly testing,” he said. “We educate people really well, but we have not been able to get them to do it. It’s been frustrating.”
Some business groups issued statements critical of the president’s order, which will apply to more than 80 million workers. Daniel Mehan, president of the Missouri Chamber of Commerce, called it “the wrong approach for business” and “unfortunate that this new federal policy will likely further divide public sentiment around COVID-19 vaccination.”
Biden’s order, though, is more than just another intrusive federal regulation. It solves a collective action problem for employers, who can’t individually require vaccines without a risk of losing workers. And if the federal vaccine mandate results in a healthier workforce, this particular regulation might save business more than it costs.