建筑承包商正在等待有关总统乔·拜登（Joe Biden）新宣布的计划的重要详细信息，该计划要求所有拥有100多名工人的美国公司要求员工接受接种疫苗或每周测试COVID病毒。
拜登在9月9日宣布该计划时说，他已要求美国劳工部职业安全与健康管理局创建一个新的紧急临时标准（ETS），以执行该任务。
大多数建筑承包商拥有100多名员工，这些工人将是受影响的8000万美国人之一。OSHA在9月9日的声明中说，它正在遵守临时标准。
"OSHA will issue an emergency temporary standard to implement this requirement," Kimberly Darby, a spokeswoman for OSHA said in the statement. "The agency is developing a rule that will require employers with more than 100 employees to provide paid time off for the time it takes for workers to get vaccinated or to recover if they are under the weather post-vaccination. This requirement will be implemented through the ETS."
尽管在发布新标准之前，雇主无需采取任何行动，但建筑组织一直建议他们的会员承包商鼓励雇员疫苗接种，因为疫苗可用。
AGC Comments
“我们正在采取一切可能的步骤，以鼓励工人获取疫苗，包括与疾病控制中心合作制作建筑特定的PSA，主持有关该主题的网络研讨会，并确保我们的成员拥有教育建筑工人所需的资源关于疫苗的安全性和有效性，美国公共事务和战略倡议副总裁布莱恩·图尔玛尔（Brian Turmail）说。“我们将释放新的OSHA紧急临时标准，以确保它将有效地改善建筑工人的健康和安全性，并且不会对雇主施加不合理的新负担。”
Ken Simonson, AGC's chief economist, said at a Sept. 1 online press conference about the construction workforce that the industry's COVID vaccination rate is about 50%.
A concern for many contractors is that enforcement of existing vaccination mandates by private owners for subcontractors and others who enter a jobsite, but do not work directly for a contractor, has already fallen on their shoulders.
Stephen Sandherr, AGC's CEO, said at the press conference, "In the situation where you're the general contractor on a hospital, and you employ or contract [with] a series of specialty trade subcontractors to perform work on that project, you have suppliers coming into the project. You have building inspectors coming onto the project."
Sandherr added, "And with these vaccination mandates that come from public and private project owners, it basically sets the general contractor up to be the policeman ... to make sure everybody who steps on that site has had, or has been vaccinated."
He said, "You can't compel your subcontractors to provide information on that or your suppliers and you can't control if a city building inspector wants to enter that site."
OSHA将如何定义一个工作场所并指定谁可以强制执行工作场所符合新的紧急临时标准。
ABC Comments
The Associated Builders and Contractors expressed similar sentiments and emphasized that it needed to know more about the expected ETS.
“ABC鼓励建筑行业的利益相关者to get vaccinated, because ensuring healthy and safe work environments is a top priority of ABC and its members," Ben Brubeck, ABC vice president of regulatory, labor and state affairs said in a statement. "ABC has concerns about several unresolved questions related to the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine policies for private employers of 100 or more employees and federal contractors."
He said, "ABC will share our concerns with the Biden administration. As ABC learns more about the new policy changes, we will continue to help our members comply with all regulations and guidance from local, state and federal authorities on how to protect workers—our industry’s most valuable asset—from COVID-19 and any of its variants.”
