ARA Sends Letter To White House and Department of Labor On The Employer-enforced COVID Vaccine Mandate
Writing on behalf of rural businesses throughout North America, Agricultural Retailers Association CEO and President Daren Coppock sent a letter to President Biden and the Department of Labor regarding the planned COVID vaccine mandate to be enforced by employers.
In the letter Coppock said: “While we share your goal of putting COVID-19 behind us as soon as possible, we oppose the idea of compelling employers to enforce vaccine mandates. This opposition is not because we question the vaccines or the need to receive them – rather, our opposition comes from the likely impacts the sweeping mandate will have on an already-tight employment situation for agricultural employers. We submit that there are better ways to achieve the goal of higher vaccination rates.”
In early September, Coppock co-signed a letter written by a group of ag organization CEOs and sent it as an open letter to ARA’s membership in support of “the safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine.” You can read that letter here.
He also commented on the burden the proposed mandate places on rural employers, saying “Right or wrong, residents in those rural communities are more likely to have lower vaccination rates. If our members are forced to apply a vaccine mandate to all of their people in these rural locations, not only will it be impossible to enforce but it will also give rise to employee turnover that will destroy the abilities of these companies to conduct business.”
As an example of the negative effect this action has taken, Coppock shares the story of an ARA member company reporting having 10% of their positions open, and applying this mandate to them could cause them to lose another 20% of their workforce.
The letter outlines how ARA supports proper encouragement and incentives. And the organization is in support of focusing “efforts of the federal government on restoring the credibility and capacity of regulatory and scientific institutions.” Coppock also shared an idea of implementing an employee threshold per location, rather than applying the mandate to the entire company. He says this idea would alleviate some of the ARA membership’s concerns.
