A business group representing wholesalers told President Joe Biden that jobs will be lost if he follows through with requiring companies with federal contracts to have their employees vaccinated.
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A business group representing wholesalers told President
Joe Biden that jobs will be lost if he follows through with requiring companies with federal contracts to have their employees vaccinated.
Eric Hoplin, president and CEO of the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors, laid out the case against the mandates and urged the president to back off his edict in a three-page letter. He said that if the contractor rule is implemented, thousands of workers will be laid off and the
supply chain problems will grow far worse.
“NAW urges that the Executive Order’s implementation be revised to avoid this calamity and provide alternatives to promote safety, including testing, and consider a short-term delay to provide time to carry out these changes and to avoid further supply chain disruptions in the coming months,” he wrote.
The business group represents more than 30,000 employers across the country, some of which provide products and services to the federal government.
The letter warned that if the executive order is implemented as written, then “thousands of valued employees will be forced out of their jobs shortly before the holidays, the already compromised supply chain will be under added pressure during the busiest time of the year, and the already tight labor market will make it immeasurably more difficult to replace laid-off employees, compounding supply chain disruption.”
The country’s supply chains are already in disarray. Dozens of ships have been seen queued up outside of ports, some purchases are taking months to be delivered, and warehouses are overloaded and understaffed. The NAW contends that some of the workers who might quit because of the mandate are crucial to helping stymie supply chain issues and that their departure will further exacerbate the problem just as
Christmas looms large .
In the letter to Biden, Hoplin pointed out that the mandate could affect lower-income workers. Several NAW companies have also reported that the employees who said they will resist taking the vaccine are disproportionately minorities.
The White House maintains that the mandate will not result in mass firings. <------