Labor Sec’y Walsh: Timing of Vax Mandate Implementation ‘Has Nothing to Do with’ Holidays or Supply Chain

On Friday’s “CNN Newsroom,” Labor Secretary Marty Walsh said that the coronavirus vaccine mandate for companies with more than 100 employees going into effect on January 4 “has nothing to do with supply chain or Christmas or holidays.”

Host Erica Hill asked, “On the timing, this being pushed to January 4, was that over concerns about further supply chain issues or holiday staffing?”

Walsh responded, “No. It’s just the way the process works. So, when the president announced it in September that he was going to ask the Department of Labor to come up with an emergency temporary standard, there’s a process that we have to go through, there’s a timing issue of it, and it was just — that’s the quickest we could get it out, probably one of the fastest we’ve ever done in getting it out. That’s what that’s all about. It has nothing to do with supply chain or Christmas or holidays.”

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