PA Chamber President and CEO Gene Barr issued the following statement in response to President Biden’s announcement that he is mandating employee vaccination or weekly testing at businesses with 100 or more employees:
“The Pennsylvania Chamber will be examining the full scope of these orders, to evaluate their impact on a private sector that has continued to battle numerous financial, workforce, health and safety challenges resulting from this pandemic.
“Our organization shares questions and concerns about this plan with the rest of the nation’s business community – including whether employers will have access to funding to help pay for expanded testing; how penalties for non-compliance will be enforced; and – perhaps most notably – whether liability protections exist for businesses acting in compliance with the latest round of OSHA standards. The Pennsylvania Chamber has spent the past year and a half advocating for liability protections for employers who have been following state and federal health and safety guidelines, and the ambiguities in these directives further highlight the need to get meaningful liability reforms in place as soon as possible.
“Through our ‘Bringing PA Back’ initiative, the PA Chamber remains committed to providing employers with the updated information and resources they need to keep their workers and customers safe and healthy. We continue to believe that employers can and should be trusted to make public health decisions that are in the best interest of their communities. We urge the Biden administration to offer business owners the clarity and flexibility they deserve as they strive to meet these new expectations while working to keep our struggling economy afloat.”