By Faith Snell, Whistle Wire, January 19th, 2022 8:02PM EST
PHOTOGRAPH BY OLI SCARFF — GETTY IMAGES
Starbucks is now ending all vaccine and testing mandates for their employees in the United States. The company said earlier this month that it would require all U.S employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or undergo weekly testing by February, 9th. Starbucks employs 220,000+ employees in the U.S.
Last week the Supreme Court shut down the Biden Administration's vaccine and testing mandate that would require large businesses to make vaccination and/or testing a requirement for all employees. The Supreme Court ruled that by doing so it would overstep executive authority, therefore striking it down.
"We respect the court's ruling and will comply," said Starbucks Chief Operating Officer John Culver.
Culver also said that the company still strongly encourages those to get vaccinated, boosted and to disclose their vaccination status.
Starbucks did however mandate that all employees disclose their vaccine status by January 10th. As it stands, more than 90% of Starbucks employees have already disclosed their vaccination status, with the "vast majority" being fully vaccinated. Starbucks has not released how many of their employees remain unvaccinated.
After hearing the news, many labour lawyers believe that other companies will join Starbucks as well in relaxing their COVID-19 related mandates.
“A lot of companies were pursuing the vaccine or test requirement only because they were being required to do so,” said Brett Coburn, a lawyer at Alston & Bird.
With such a large influence Starbucks has, we could be looking at a chain reaction in many companies throughout the U.S. The Canadian Starbucks has yet to follow in the tracks of the U. S side of the organization, but this may change.
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