Fully vaccinated workers will no longer be required to wear a mask regardless of whether their co-workers are unvaccinated following new guidance from the state’s workplace safety agency.
The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health’s Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board voted to adopt new workplace masking and safety rules for the second time in two weeks, allowing fully vaccinated workers to forego wearing a mask if they document their vaccination status.
All employees will also not be required to wear a mask when working outdoors regardless of their vaccination status.
After the board’s vote, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order to make the new rules effective at 12:01 a.m. Friday rather than after 10 days as normally required for workplace safety changes.
“We’re turning the page,” Newsom said during a briefing Thursday about both Cal/OSHA’s guidelines and the state’s reopening in general. “No more capacity limits, no more modifications, no more issues around physical and social distancing and now we are aligning with (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) guidelines.”
The new rules will require unvaccinated workers to continue wearing a mask indoors as they’ve been required to do throughout the pandemic.
Fully vaccinated employees will also not be required by the state to get tested for COVID-19 or quarantine if they are asymptomatic.
Employers must continue documenting their virus prevention standards, provide unvaccinated workers with N95 respirators upon request and evaluate their business’ ventilation system to maximize proper air flow.
Until two weeks ago, workers had been required to wear a mask or other face covering regardless of their vaccination status or whether they worked indoors or outside.
At the Cal/OSHA board’s June 3 meeting, the agency considered an updated set of rules that would have allowed fully vaccinated workers to remove their masks only in rooms in which all workers were also fully vaccinated.
Those rules – which the board unanimously voted to rescind one week ago after backlash from some business groups and consultation with state health officials – would have gone into effect weeks after the state lifted its mask mandate in most situations for fully vaccinated people.
According to state vaccination data, more than 70 percent of adults across the state have received at least one vaccine dose.
More information on the state’s new workplace safety rules for vaccinated people can be found at https://www.dir.ca.gov/dosh/coronavirus/Revisions-FAQ.html.
16 comments
The new rules will require unvaccinated workers to continue wearing a mask indoors as they’ve been required to do throughout the pandemic.
let the vaccine shaming begin
and now on your children as well
you wanted this you backed the lying newscum and fauci and cdc and who and china
so here we are …..the many shaming your children
the dem politicians never stop when they smell money
and their circling day and night
Makes me sick 😣 It’s no ones business who is vaccinated and who isn’t.
I was thinking the same thing. Now people will know who isn’t vaccinated and will be judged. Hopefully no fights or killings will happen like they do with the masks. Your life just isn’t worth dying over for telling someone to wear a mask. But then again I mind my own business. On a positive note it is nice to see people without masks and not being all paranoid anymore. Especially when your OUTDOORS on a walk.
I was at Lucky’s today and all the checkers were wearing masks with the exception of the worker outside sanitizing the carts. They have the green light from CAL/Osha to unmask if vaccinated (I know some are vaccinated) but I suspect ‘soldiering’ as not to lose their hazard pay! Follow the money, folks…
You are incorrect. Management has been instructed by OSHA that employees must show management proof of vaccination to ditch the mask. This just came down today, so most have not even had time to do so. One shot of the two shot version wont do it, either. Must be ten days out from the second shot.
Mind you, any customer can walk in without providing proof, totally negating any benefit the OSHA rule may have. But that power isn’t going to just abuse itself.
I suspected management had a say in the ‘one for all and all for one’ approach today with the masks but this doesn’t negate the fact that some employees are worried about the loss of hazard pay associated with ditching the masks…I have friends who have told me this. You are correct, it’s not fair that customers don’t have to show vaccination status, but bottom line there’s a monetary component to this. I hope the courts sort out this mess because as a customer I will not publicize my current health status and I don’t expect anyone in their place of employment to do the same…
This has absolutely nothing to do with hazardous pay. As this comes from corporate. Not the store level. So even if they are already fully vaccinated. If corporate says keep it on. They have to. And I know the pay ended for a lot of grocery stores.
@ Wage Slave
Just cause CALOSHA and Newscum say we have to do it, does not make it right. They have not followed the science from day 1, unless is it coincided with their political power/position.
I wonder if this newest executive order will be ruled illegal like others have already been …
A vaccinated person cannot self attest … we must show proof? And in my company, we must upload it into a third part software.
If you are vaccinated, why do you care if someone else is not? Who give a !*&*& if they choose not to get the vaccination?
We have not recieves any “hazard pay” since June of last year.
And so it goes…
Forced discrimination.
CA is following Germany and Venezuela step by step.
I certainly hope the average CA voter is happy.
Falling for the same old lies.
Seeing the same old results,
and applauding it were something new and great.
This is not about our health
Divide divide divide
Stay strong
There is no legitimate medical or scientific reason for this. Neighboring states do not require proving you have taken an experimental medication to breath free, and they are seeing covid decline rapidly just as it is here. If you are vaccinated, you have nothing statistically to worry about anymore. If you aren’t, you have had the opportunity, and it’s your choice if you want to take the moderate increased risk. For the incredibly small percentage of people that can’t take it for some reason, there are N95 masks.
Additionally, if you make unvaccinated people mask while vaccinated do not, you are putting a bright scarlet letter on the former, as well as screaming out to the world what should be private medical information. This should bother anyone that has any grasp on history.
I was in Lunardi’s today and most of the checkers were maskless. At Safeway they are all still wearing masks.
Left unmentioned are the millions who have confirmed past Covid infections and hard-earned natural immunity.
Employers have to verify and keep records of who is vaccinated too:
“Q: Is documentation required for a fully vaccinated employee to work without a face covering indoors?
A: Yes. Vaccination status must be documented. The revised ETS does not specify a particular method. The employer must record the vaccination status for any employee not wearing a face covering indoors and this record must be kept confidential. Acceptable options include:
Employees provide proof of vaccination (vaccine card, image of vaccine card or health care document showing vaccination status) and employer maintains a copy.
Employees provide proof of vaccination. The employer maintains a record of the employees who presented proof, but not the vaccine record itself.
Employees self-attest to vaccination status and employer maintains a record of who self-attests.
Nothing in the revised ETS prevents an employer from requiring all employees to wear a face covering instead of having a documentation process.
Q. What if the employee declines to state their vaccination status?
A: Under the ETS, an employer is not obligated to require employees to submit proof of being fully vaccinated. Absent such a requirement, an employee has the right to decline to state if they are vaccinated or not. In that case, the employer must treat the employee as unvaccinated and must not take disciplinary or discriminatory action against the employee.”
Is this a HIPAA violation? Sounds a little “because we said so” from Cal OSHA
Question … If the rate of death and serious illness among healthy people under the age of 50 is lower without any vax than it is for those with the vax … why vax?
Also … why did we even need a vax at all … #IVERMECTIN is cheap and available drug that has proved to kick CV19 to the curb in just 72 hours … Peru, Argentina and Italy used to to stop CV19 dead. Somethings smells fishy … me thinks.
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