Starbucks Drops Vaccine Mandate Following Supreme Court Ruling
SEATTLE — Starbucks will no longer require COVID-19 vaccinations for 228,000 workers at its 9,000 U.S. coffee shops.
Starbucks is one of the first major companies to change vaccination policies after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a vaccine mandate that would have affected about 84 million workers, or about half of the U.S. labor force. Had the mandate succeeded, workers would have had to either get fully vaccinated or submit to weekly testing.
The Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling came as the omicron coronavirus variant drives a record-breaking surge in COVID-19 infections. Under the Jan. 13 ruling, the Biden administration can require vaccines for most U.S. health care workers, but the court removed a stipulation that would've mandated vaccination in companies with 100 or more employees. Washington state had already mandated vaccination for health care workers.
The new Starbucks vaccination policy, first reported by The Associated Press, was announced in a memo to employees Tuesday.
Amtrak temporarily suspended its vaccine mandate in December, before the Supreme Court ruling. In a memo to employees seen by Reuters, Amtrak CEO Bill Flynn said nearly 96 percent of its employees were either fully vaccination or had received accommodations for religious or medical reasons.
More big businesses operating in Washington could follow suit as the coronavirus surge worsens the country’s labor shortage. A record 8.8 million people called out sick with COVID-19 between Dec. 29-Jan. 10, according to The Washington Post.
Retail establishments and their advocates have been vocal critics of the now-blocked requirement, arguing they’re already struggling to find enough workers as the coronavirus pandemic persists. Brett Coburn, a lawyer at Atlanta-based Alston & Bird, told The New York Times “a lot of companies were pursuing the vaccine or test requirement only because they were being required to do so.”
The AP reported Boston-based General Electric Co. got rid of its vaccine mandate last week after the court ruled, according to IEU-CWA Local 201, the union representing machinists, electricians and other GE employees. Overall, GE has 56,000 U.S. workers.
Not all big businesses plan to follow the lead of Starbucks and GE, though. New York-based Citigroup Inc., one of the largest banks in the U.S., in October said its workers needed to be fully vaccinated or receive an accommodation by Jan. 14. Citigroup told the AP that 99 percent of its employees are now fully vaccinated.
In Washington, school staff, state employees and several other groups are required to vaccinate, but the impact of those mandates on the workforce has been minimal.
It’s up to employers to navigate state and local laws in the absence of a federal mandate. More than a dozen states prohibit COVID-19 vaccine mandates of any kind, CNBC reported.
“For most employers, it has proved to be a day-to-day crisis because when they think they know the answer, the rules change,” Domenique Camacho Moran, a labor and employment lawyer with the firm Farrell Fritz, told The New York Times.
This article originally appeared on the Seattle Patch
