Protests, lawsuits signal resistance as federal vaccine mandates loom

WASHINGTON (SBG) — As the Biden administration finalizes plans for sweeping COVID-19 vaccine mandates, resistance from politicians and the public is hardening, potentially creating new obstacles for what health officials hoped would be an effective tool to drive up immunization rates heading into winter.

The federal government released guidance Monday for implementing a vaccine mandate for federal contractors, and the Department of Labor plans to publish a final rule for a mandate affecting private sector businesses with at least 100 employees within days. Workers who do not want to get vaccinated are expected to have the option of submitting to regular COVID-19 testing instead.

Many major companies, including some with federal contracts, imposed vaccine requirements of their own in advance of the government’s action. Several state and local governments have also announced or implemented mandates, spurring political and legal battles with unions.

In New York City, 9,000 municipal workers went on unpaid leave Monday as Mayor Bill de Blasio’s vaccine mandate went into effect, and 12,000 others who are unvaccinated continued working while requests for religious or medical exemptions are pending. The mayor announced the requirement less than two weeks ago, and vaccination rates among city workers climbed rapidly.

“We’re not seeing disruptions to any city services,” de Blasio said late Monday as nearly 95% of the city’s workforce remained on the job.

Still, about 2,300 city firefighters called in sick Monday in what Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro suggested was a protest against the mandate. With 18 of the city’s 350 fire units out of service due to staffing shortages, he urged employees to “come to their senses” and get back to work.

A judge in Chicago blocked a vaccine mandate for the city’s police officers Monday, concluding they should have a right to contest the order through arbitration before it takes effect. Courts elsewhere have upheld mandates for government workers over union objections.

President Joe Biden resisted resorting to federal mandates for much of the year, but he announced new requirements as vaccinations lagged amid the summer spike in COVID-19 infections and deaths driven by the delta variant. Once implemented, the new rules could apply to up to 100 million workers.

“I waited until July to talk about mandating, because I tried everything else possible,” Biden said at a recent CNN town hall. “The mandates are working.”

Exactly how the new mandates will function and how much impact they will have is not certain. The guidance for contractors appears to provide broad flexibility for companies to determine “the appropriate means of enforcement” for those who refuse to get vaccinated, and some executives have signaled they do not intend to fire employees who do not comply.

Nearly 20 Republican-led states have already sued the federal government over the contractor mandate, and additional legal challenges are likely once the business mandate rule is published. They argue the requirements overstep federal authority and infringe on personal medical decisions.

"If the federal government attempts to unconstitutionally exert its will and force federal contractors to mandate vaccinations, the workforce and businesses could be decimated, further exacerbating the supply chain and workforce crises," Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt said in a statement.

Those who refuse vaccination are a shrinking but vocal minority. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Monday that 80% of U.S. adults have now received at least one dose of a vaccine. About two-thirds of the total U.S. population is at least partially vaccinated, but the numbers are still lower than public health officials believe are necessary to contain the virus.

“We know vaccines are the very best tool we have to accelerate our path out of the pandemic,” Jeffery Zeints, the White House coronavirus response task force coordinator, said Monday. “And we’re hard at work, at executing across a number of fronts, from vaccinating the unvaccinated, to getting booster shots to tens of millions of eligible Americans, to standing up our vaccination program for kids ages 5 through 11.”

New infections continued to decline last week, and deaths and hospitalizations fell by about 10% from the previous week. However, concerns persist about another wave of infections when temperatures drop, and vaccination could help mitigate the damage of a seasonal surge.

“A federal mandate appears to be necessary to move towards population immunity since other avenues to increase vaccination rates have had mixed results and not gotten us to at least 70% of Americans fully vaccinated,” said Amber Reinhart, an expert on health communication and messaging at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Polls suggest opposition to vaccine mandates has grown since Biden made the initial announcement, particularly among Republican voters. Some Republican politicians have encouraged resistance and celebrated workers who speak out against their companies’ requirements as the response to the pandemic becomes more polarized.

In a Kaiser Family Foundation survey released last week, nearly 40% of the unvaccinated claimed they would leave their jobs if they were required to get vaccinated or take weekly COVID-19 tests, and 72% said they would quit if there was no testing option. Just over half of all workers said they do not want their employer to mandate vaccines.

“Tragically, what should be seen as a public health crisis where all Americans should come together and care for one another has turned into a political argument about personal freedoms and bodily integrity,” Reinhart said. “I do think that we’ll see more resistance as people have now internalized their opinions on vaccination and are unfortunately mixing it together with their political ideals.”

Threats by workers to walk out rather than submit to vaccination have been common as mandate deadlines near, but relatively few – only 1% of respondents in the Kaiser poll – have so far given up their jobs. Those numbers could rise as anti-mandate protests gain momentum and more Americans become subject to vaccine requirements in the coming weeks.

As New York City officials learned Monday, resistance to mandates can create staffing challenges, and some businesses had pressed the White House to delay any new requirements until after the holiday season to avoid shortages at a critical time. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said Sunday such a delay would be a “big mistake” and would put workers and customers at risk.

"People want to work in a workplace where they feel safe,” Raimondo said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “The best thing we can do to get people back to work is to make sure everybody is vaccinated."

A recent U.S. Chamber of Commerce poll found 64% of small-business owners support the planned mandate for private sector businesses, and 61% said they already have or are likely to require their employees to get vaccinated. More than 40% claimed they would be likely to replace employees who remain unvaccinated, but only 10% reported actually having done so.

“Small-business owners know that our recovery hinges on the efforts to get every American vaccinated, invest in a healthy workforce, and make investments that will bolster our economy,” said Shaundell Newsome, co-chair of Small Business for America’s Future.

According to Reinhart, it is difficult to predict how employers or workers will respond when mandate ultimatums arrive, regardless of what they say now. In the past, most vaccine resisters have backed down and rolled up their sleeves, but the intensifying political dynamics complicate the calculation, making new education and outreach efforts essential.

“Public health officials need to determine why people are opposed to the vaccine and what sources of information and people they trust so they can engage in targeted campaigns that address the concerns and are delivered by trusted sources,” she said.