NATE: The Communications Infrastructure Contractors Association asked President Joe Biden this week for a public comment period on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) proposed vaccine mandate. NATE says some members fear losing workers over the mandate, and hearing directly from its small business members would help explain the potential impact on broadband deployment goals.
Biden announced new COVID vaccine mandates on September 9, with the goal of ensuring 100 million unvaccinated Americans get vaccinated. The order requires employers with more than 100 employees to either mandate their employees be vaccinated or conduct weekly testing of unvaccinated employees. The President also ordered that all federal contractors working on federal property be vaccinated, with no option for testing, according to NATE.
Under the temporary emergency standard, OSHA will be allowed to enact a rule immediately if “workers are in grave danger due to exposure to toxic substances or agents determined to be toxic or physically harmful or to new hazards.” Due to the emergency procedures under which the rule is being drafted, OSHA has stated that there will be no public comment period for the proposed rule, notes NATE.
“The ability to deploy broadband services to rural, unserved, and underserved areas depends on a skilled workforce. And NATE member companies, already facing a workforce shortage of almost 15,000 workers, are greatly concerned about their ability to retain their current workforce and build a pipeline of future workers, if a federal COVID-19 vaccine mandate is implemented,” say NATE Director of Government Relations Todd Washam, President/CEO Todd Schlekeway and Director of Legislative Affairs Jim Goldwater in a letter to the President.
A member survey showed that about 85 percent of NATE members believe that some staff would resign if they were required to be vaccinated against COVID and 30 percent indicated they would lose more than half of their workers, they explain. Like other industries, NATE members have struggled to recruit skilled workers, the association executives note.
“Simply put, NATE members fear that if we do not implement federal vaccination goals in a responsible manner, then they could lose a significant number of workers who are vital to building and deploying broadband services to rural, unserved, and underserved communities.” They pointed out that tower technicians who are responsible for installing, servicing, or maintaining critical communications and broadcast towers have worked tirelessly since the beginning of the pandemic.
The association believes a public comment period will enable OSHA staff to hear directly from NATE small business members and provide a better understanding of how they believe vaccine mandates “will impact our national broadband goals,” wrote Washam, Schlekeway and Goldwater.
Reader Interactions