Proposing and announcing a Covid-19 vaccine mandate is a lot easier than actually enforcing one — and that was before the Supreme Court struck down the OSHA employer vaccine mandate.
The coffee giant Starbucks is hardly a candidate for the vast right-wing conspiracy, nor does the company’s corporate management seem likely to be regular Joe Rogan listeners or regular readers of Alex Berenson. But Starbucks management has concluded that with the Supreme Court striking down the OSHA rule, there is no need for the company to enforce a vaccine mandate. The company encourages its employees to get vaccinated and boasts it “provides up to two hours of paid time off for partners to receive the vaccine, up to three doses, as well as up to four hours of paid time off if partners experience vaccine-related side effects and miss a scheduled shift within 48 hours of receiving the COVID-19 vaccine or booster.”
But the company will not require employees to be vaccinated. A Starbucks representatives said the “vast majority” of the company’s employees are fully vaccinated, but declined to give a percentage.
Starbucks is likely concluding that enforcing a testing-or-vaccination mandate on those remaining unvaccinated employees is more trouble than it’s worth.
With 87 percent of American adults having had at least one shot of a Covid-19 vaccine, a lot of employers are likely to make the same calculation.