Coronavirus: Thread

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Joe Biden the Raging Asshole Retard, firing millions of workers from
their jobs...



CEO: I Am Challenging The Vaccine Mandate To Protect My Workers' Jobs

By Angela Phillips, the CEO of the Ohio-based Phillips Manufacturing &
Tower Company, which includes Shelby Welded Tube, first published in
RealClearPolicy

The Biden administration has finally published its anticipated
ultimatum threatening companies like mine with severe fines and
penalties for not firing any employee who declines to be vaccinated
against or submit to invasive weekly testing for COVID-19. The new
rule promulgated by the U.S. Labor Department’s Occupational Safety
and Health Administration (OSHA) under the guise of workplace safety
may well bankrupt the business my father founded. So, as the CEO of
the Phillips Manufacturing & Tower Company, I am joining with The
Buckeye Institute to challenge OSHA’s vaccine mandate in court. Here’s
why.

Phillips is a 54-year-old company based in Shelby, Ohio, that
manufactures specialty welded steel tubing for automotive, appliance,
and construction industries. OSHA’s emergency rule applies to
companies with 100 or more employees — at our Shelby Welded Tube
facility, we employ 104 people. As a family-owned business I take the
health of my workers seriously — they are my neighbors and my friends.
When I heard of the mandate, we conducted a survey of our workers to
see what the impacts would be. It revealed that 28 Phillips employees
are fully vaccinated, while antibody testing conducted at company
expense found that another 16 employees have tested positive for
COVID-19 antibodies and likely possess natural immunity. At least 47
employees have indicated that they have not and will not be
vaccinated. Seventeen of those 47 unvaccinated workers said that they
would quit or be fired before complying with the vaccine or testing
mandate. Those are 17 skilled workers that Phillips cannot afford to
lose.

Perhaps the Biden administration remains unaware of the labor shortage
currently plaguing the U.S. labor market generally and industrial
manufacturing especially. Like many companies, Phillips is already
understaffed, with seven job openings we have been unable to fill.
Employees already work overtime to keep pace with customer demand,
working 10-hour shifts, six days a week on average. Firing 17 veteran
members of the Phillips team certainly won’t help.

Accounting estimates that it will cost Phillips close to $1 million in
additional overtime, and recruiting and training new employees to
replace those lost to the mandate — assuming the company can find
them. And that also assumes that Phillips will continue to meet
existing customer orders using extra overtime for remaining employees.
No easy task and not a safe assumption.

If a short-handed Phillips cannot meet contractual production
requirements due to the mandate-fueled labor shortage, then Phillips
could lose customers and face significant penalties. Many Phillips
customers are outside of the U.S. — primarily in Mexico — and may
flock to foreign competitors or companies with fewer than 100 workers
that are not subject to the mandate or the shortages it creates. And
one Phillips contract, for example, imposes a $25,000 penalty for each
hour that the customer is without the promised product. Such
obligations and penalties help protect supply chains across the
industry, but those obligations — and supply chains — may soon be
broken and customers may soon go elsewhere thanks to the
administration’s callous new rule.

Complying with OSHA’s vaccine mandate and testing requirements risks
catastrophic financial consequences. It also means firing qualified,
well-trained, hardworking employees who rely on their jobs at Phillips
Manufacturing & Tower Company to feed their families and pay their
mortgages — for no reason other than to avoid draconian federal fines.
Indeed, these employees may very well have the natural immunity that
we tested for, which studies show to be more robust and longer lasting
than vaccinated immunity. OSHA has no authority to require Phillips or
any other company to make such a Hobson’s choice.

OSHA’s vaccine-or-testing ultimatum is unlike any other occupational
health and safety regulation inasmuch as it tries to regulate an
employee’s individual decision not to receive an injection. And it
does not regulate commercial activity inasmuch as employees subject to
the mandate do not even pay for the vaccines.

As Biden administration officials have publicly admitted, the vaccine
mandate is a brazen attempt to coerce private companies into enforcing
a vaccine requirement that Washington lacks the legal authority to
require. Phillips is one company unwilling to do the administration’s
dirty work.