Regulatory agency keeps door open for Inslee vaccine mandate on all employers

When Governor Inslee issued his COVID vaccine mandate for most state employees and health-care workers in both the public and private sectors, we wondered if and when he would try to extend that mandate to all private employers. This week the agency known for cracking down on employers over other COVID mandates set the stage for the governor to make that next move.

In short, the Department of Labor and Industries has effectively extended the emergency rules dating from May 2020 that allow it to enforce the emergency COVID-19 proclamations which apply in the workplace. The extension is for 120 days, which tells me a couple of things. First, Inslee is in no rush to end the state of emergency he proclaimed more than 610 days ago. Second, he is prepared to ignore the Biden administration, which announced in mid-September that it is working on an all-out vaccine mandate for the private workplace.

In May the governor used new workplace rules to force Washington employers to verify the vaccination status of employees who wish to work without wearing a face covering. He is certainly capable of using the same tactic against them now, to force vaccinations. As the saying goes, “never let a good crisis go to waste,” and a vaccine mandate for all private employers would fit with many of the other extreme actions we’ve seen from Inslee during the pandemic.

Our Senate Republican leadership counsel suspects the L&I emergency rule would allow Inslee to exert even more control over the private sector, across a wider set of topics, than anything the Biden administration is planning. For that reason, the people of our state should ask: What else does the governor have up his sleeve that would need L&I enforcement?

Chapter 34.05.350(3) of the Revised Code of Washington allows any person to petition the governor to immediately repeal the emergency rule, and a group of Republican legislators did that this week. The governor must either grant the petition and order the immediate repeal of the emergency rule or deny the petition with a written basis explaining the denial. That could give the people some insight into what the governor has planned for their lives.

One more thing: I’ve been asked why Inslee extended his vaccine mandate to nurses and other health-care workers in the private sector, on top of so many public-sector employees. The answer comes from an August 6 email from the governor’s chief spokesperson to a pair of Olympia-based reporters, uncovered through a recent public-records request: “That way state employees can’t just take their unvaccinated selves and go work in [the] private sector.” Consider that alongside the fact that Inslee chose to exempt in-home health-care workers from his vaccine mandate–workers who tend to be members of SEIU 775, which has been a big supporter of the governor and his allies. The obvious conclusion here is that Inslee’s rules don’t apply to everyone equally.