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10/20/21 N.J. To Require Workers Contracted By The State To Get Covid Vaccine Or Face Testing New Jersey will now require not just direct state employees but workers employed under new state government contracts to get vaccinated against COVID-19 or face weekly testing, under an executive order Gov. Phil Murphy announced Wednesday. Under the order, all new state contracts, solicitations for state contracts, extensions or renewals of existing state contracts, and options on existing state contracts from now on must contain a clause stipulating the requirement, Murphy said at his latest coronavirus briefing in Trenton. 10/20/21 States Could Push Off Biden's Vaccine Mandate for Years Twenty-six states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands can adopt and enforce their own workplace safety and health rules for private-industry or state and local government workers, as allowed by OSHA. Included in the 26 states are Alaska, Arizona, Indiana, Kentucky, South Carolina, Utah and Wyoming, which are states that have said they would sue over the OSHA vaccine mandate if it is enacted. . .The issue is that it can take years for OSHA to actually get states to comply with OSHA regulations. The process to force states to comply includes formal notices, a comment period, a hearing before an administrative judge, a review by the secretary of labor, and if the secretary's decision is challenged, consideration by a federal appeals court. One way for OSHA to circumvent states from delaying the mandate is to tie state funding of any state plan. OSHA provides up to half of a state plan's enforcement budget, which has been about $108 million annually in recent years. 10/20/21 NACS, EMA, NATSO, SIGMA Raise Concerns About Vaccine Mandate The Biden Administration's vaccine mandate for companies with more than 100 employees will have "far-reaching consequences beyond the laudable objective of moving past the COVID-19 pandemic," NACS and other fuel trade groups told the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OHSA) in a recent letter. The pending Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS), which is at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review, "may complicate already fragile labor markets and create challenges for many businesses that are currently struggling to remain open. We urge you to consider these realities as you draft the ETS, and request that the ETS or forthcoming guidance address the specific questions we raise below," the letter states. NACS, Energy Marketers of America, National Association of Truckstop Operators and SIGMA signed the September 27 letter to Jim Frederick, acting assistant secretary of OSHA. 10/19/21 The Economic Rebound Is Still Waiting for Workers The slow return of workers is causing headaches for the Biden administration, which was counting on a strong economic rebound to give momentum to its political agenda. Forecasters were largely blindsided by the problem and don't know how long it will last. Conservatives have blamed generous unemployment benefits for keeping people at home, but evidence from states that ended the payments early suggests that any impact was small. Progressives say companies could find workers if they paid more, but the shortages aren't limited to low-wage industries.Instead, economists point to a complex, overlapping web of factors, many of which could be slow to reverse.
10/18/21
The Workers Won't Be Coming Back, Covid or Not. Here Are Theories on Where They Went What is wrong with America's labor market? Americans are quitting their jobs at a record pace while millions who left the workforce during the pandemic have yet to return. Many economists say Covid is the culprit, but there may be more going on than meets the eye. To attribute slow hiring mainly to the pandemic presumes the labor shortage is temporary. But travel trends examined by Barron's suggest the acute lack of workers owes to more than Covid infection rates, a revelation that raises questions about why workers are staying home and whether they will come back to the traditional labor market. 10/14/21 NJ 7-Eleven Cashier Is Beat Up After Refusing To Sell Vape Products, Cops Say Police have released surveillance video showing two suspects punching a 7-Eleven clerk after he refused to sell them vaping and tobacco products. Evesham police said the two young men entered the store on Greentree Road around 10:45 p.m. Tuesday and were refused by the clerk because of their age. The pair then broke a glass bottle as a distraction to get the clerk to come from behind the counter, according to police. When that tactic failed, one of the suspects went behind the counter, knocked the clerk to the floor and repeatedly punched him in the face. The other suspect grabbed items from a display behind the plexiglass before also going behind the counter to take cigarette packages from the shelf. They both then ran out the door. |
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