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Op-Ed: I am challenging the vaccine mandate
to protect my workers' jobs
[The Center Square] Angela Phillips |
RealClearWire
The Biden administration has finally published its
anticipated ultimatum threatening companies like mine with severe fines
and penalties for not firing any employee who declines to be vaccinated
against or submit to invasive weekly testing for COVID-19. The new rule
promulgated by the U.S. Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and
Health Administration (OSHA) under the guise of workplace safety may
well bankrupt the business my father founded. So, as the CEO of the
Phillips Manufacturing & Tower Company, I am joining with The Buckeye
Institute to challenge OSHA’s vaccine mandate in court. Here’s why. |
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 Phillips is a 54-year-old company based in Shelby, Ohio, that
manufactures specialty welded steel tubing for automotive, appliance, and
construction industries. OSHA’s emergency rule applies to companies with 100 or
more employees – at our Shelby Welded Tube facility, we employ 104 people. As a
family-owned business, I take the health of my workers seriously – they are my
neighbors and my friends. When I heard of the mandate, we conducted a survey of
our workers to see what the impacts would be. It revealed that 28 Phillips
employees are fully vaccinated, while antibody testing conducted at company
expense found that another 16 employees have tested positive for COVID-19
antibodies and likely possess natural immunity. At least 47 employees have
indicated that they have not and will not be vaccinated. Seventeen of those 47
unvaccinated workers said that they would quit or be fired before complying with
the vaccine or testing mandate. Those are 17 skilled workers that Phillips
cannot afford to lose.
Perhaps the Biden administration remains unaware of the labor shortage currently
plaguing the U.S. labor market generally and industrial manufacturing
especially. Like many companies, Phillips is already understaffed, with seven
job openings we have been unable to fill. Employees already work overtime to
keep pace with customer demand, working 10-hour shifts, six days a week on
average. Firing 17 veteran members of the Phillips team certainly won’t help.
Accounting estimates that it will cost Phillips close to $1 million in
additional overtime, and recruiting and training new employees to replace those
lost to the mandate – assuming the company can find them. And that also assumes
that Phillips will continue to meet existing customer orders using extra
overtime for remaining employees. No easy task and not a safe assumption.
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If a short-handed Phillips cannot meet contractual
production requirements due to the mandate-fueled labor shortage,
then Phillips could lose customers and face significant penalties.
Many Phillips customers are outside of the U.S. – primarily in
Mexico – and may flock to foreign competitors or companies with
fewer than 100 workers that are not subject to the mandate or the
shortages it creates. And one Phillips contract, for example,
imposes a $25,000 penalty for each hour that the customer is without
the promised product. Such obligations and penalties help protect
supply chains across the industry, but those obligations – and
supply chains – may soon be broken and customers may soon go
elsewhere thanks to the administration’s callous new rule.
Complying with OSHA’s vaccine mandate and testing
requirements risks catastrophic financial consequences. It also
means firing qualified, well-trained, hardworking employees who rely
on their jobs at Phillips Manufacturing & Tower Company to feed
their families and pay their mortgages – for no reason other than to
avoid draconian federal fines. Indeed, these employees may very well
have the natural immunity that we tested for, which studies show to
be more robust and longer lasting than vaccinated immunity. OSHA has
no authority to require Phillips or any other company to make such a
Hobson’s choice.
OSHA’s vaccine-or-testing ultimatum is unlike any other occupational
health and safety regulation inasmuch as it tries to regulate an
employee’s individual decision not to receive an injection. And it
does not regulate commercial activity inasmuch as employees subject
to the mandate do not even pay for the vaccines.
As Biden administration officials have publicly
admitted, the vaccine mandate is a brazen attempt to coerce private
companies into enforcing a vaccine requirement that Washington lacks
the legal authority to require. Phillips is one company unwilling to
do the administration’s dirty work.
Angela Phillips is the CEO of the Ohio-based Phillips
Manufacturing & Tower Company, which includes Shelby Welded Tube. |
