Macy’s began asking employees to provide vaccination status on Tuesday, indicating that it is preparing for vaccination or weekly testing before Friday’s special hearing in the Supreme Court.
In a memo sent to employees obtained by The New York Times, the retailer, which owns both Bloomingdale’s and Bluemercury, told U.S. employees to upload their vaccination status to a third-party platform before January 16. Whether you work in a store, supply chain facility, office, or remote/hybrid.” For employees who claim to have not been vaccinated, Macy’s stated that they will “review your submissions, and colleagues from the consulting team may contact you , Discuss the next steps.” The company also stated that starting from February 16th, it may be necessary to upload the proof of the negative test to the same system.
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hold a hearing this week to evaluate the legality of two measures taken by the Biden administration: vaccine or test authorization for large employers, and vaccination requirements for certain health care workers.The retail industry has postponed a new regulation issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in November, which requires companies with 100 or more workers to be vaccinated or tested weekly, saying this may exacerbate the busyness of many retailers. During the period, the labor shortage was dealt with.Holiday.
Since then, the Omicron variant has brought global coronavirus cases to record levels, although recent data shows that people infected with it are much less likely to be hospitalized than people infected with the Delta variant, especially if they are vaccinated .
Macy’s separately stated on Tuesday that it plans to shorten its Monday-Thursday business hours for the rest of January due to a surge in headcount and staff shortages.CNBC reported the news earlier.
The National Retail Federation, a major industry lobby group, said in a statement on Tuesday that it “still believes that OSHA has exceeded its authority in issuing vaccine authorizations, and we look forward to presenting this argument to the Supreme Court on Friday.” It is estimated that based on external data on unvaccinated workers, the order requires 20 million tests nationwide every week, and “there is currently no such testing capability.”Nevertheless, Messi’s memo, which has tens of thousands of employees, indicates that the industry is preparing to implement the regulations.Macy’s also stated in its memo that it will adopt the new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which recommends shortening the isolation period for infected persons from 10 days to 5 days, provided that they have no symptoms or are in remission.
The retailer asked its company employees to receive vaccination or test negative for Covid-19 before returning to the office in the fall, but it did not make the same request to store employees.
When asked about the memo, a representative of Macy’s said in an email that the retailer was “working hard to comply with Covid-related federal and local guidelines”.
Post time: Jan-06-2022
