Carhartt Keeps Vaccination Mandate in Place For Workers Despite SCOTUS Ruling

Clothing company Carhartt recently announced that it was keeping its COVID-19 vaccination mandate for employees in place despite a recent ruling from the Supreme Court, blocking president Joe Biden's vaccine mandate for large companies.

An email sent to employees regarding the vaccine mandate was recently leaked on social media. In the email, Carhartt CEO Mark Valade wrote that the recent Supreme Court ruling "does not change Carhartt's mandatory vaccination program, which went into effect on January 4th."

"We put workplace safety at the top of our priority list and the Supreme Court's recent ruling doesn't impact that core value," Valade's email said. "We, and the medical community, continue to believe vaccines are necessary to ensure a safe working environment for every associate and even perhaps their households."

A spokesperson for Carhartt confirmed the details of the internal email to Newsweek and added, "Carhartt made the decision to implement its own vaccine mandate as part of our long-standing commitment to workplace safety. Our recent communication to employees was to reinforce that the Supreme Court ruling does not affect the mandate we put in place."

"Carhartt fully understands and respects the varying opinions on this topic, and we are aware some of our associates do not support this policy. However, we stand behind our decision because we believe vaccines are necessary to protect our workforce," the Carhartt spokesperson told Newsweek.

The decision by Carhartt to keep its COVID-19 vaccine mandate in place comes a few days after the Supreme Court blocked Biden's federal vaccine or weekly COVID-19 testing requirement for large private businesses.

"Although Congress has indisputably given OSHA the power to regulate occupational dangers, it has not given that agency the power to regulate public health more broadly," six conservative judges who voted against the mandate, wrote in an opinion. "Requiring the vaccination of 84 million Americans, selected simply because they work for employers with more than 100 employees, certainly falls in the latter category."

Biden criticized the ruling shortly after, saying in a statement that he was "disappointed."

"I am disappointed that the Supreme Court has chosen to block common-sense life-saving requirements for employees at large businesses that were grounded squarely in both science and the law. This emergency standard allowed employers to require vaccinations or to permit workers to refuse to be vaccinated, so long as they were tested once a week and wore a mask at work: a very modest burden," Biden said in a statement.