Job Creators Network says companies losing 30% of workforce due to vaccine mandate

WASHINGTON (SBG) - The Job Creators Network is suing the Biden administration over vaccine mandate policies, arguing that taking someone’s livelihood away over the policy amounts to an infringement of civil liberties. While Biden assured the mandate would only affect larger companies, the Job Creators Network says the reality is that many small businesses have over the 100 employee threshold for vaccine mandates.

"When we're already facing the biggest labor shortage we've seen in decades, to put this on small businesses and turn them essentially into vaccine police is just an overstep," said JCN CCO Elaine Parker to The National Desk’s Jan Jeffcoat. “These are conversations that people should be having with their doctors in the exam room and not their bosses in the lunchroom.”

Job Creators Network President Alfredo Ortiz met with the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs regarding the vaccine mandate.

“It gave us the opportunity to talk to them about the plight of small businesses in coming out of this pandemic, how they're facing such a massive labor shortage,” said Parker. “Across the board, we're hearing from our members that it's about 30% of their workforce that don't want to be vaccinated for whatever reason. And so for a company with 100 employees to lose 30% of the workforce, it shuts them down, literally, they can't function.”

Parker says it’s an outsized impact in comparison to larger companies like Delta and Coca Cola, who could withstand losing 30% of their workforce.

“What we tried to do was explain, a one size fits all mandate, you just can't do,” said Parker.

As supply chain issues plague businesses, Parker says small businesses are forced to compete with large businesses.

“200,000 small businesses closed permanently because of the pandemic. Meanwhile, Amazon saw over a 200% increase in profits. So when you talk about the cost of goods going up and trying to keep product flowing to the shelves, these larger companies can withstand the cost of increases,” said Parker. “These supply chain issues are a huge impact on small businesses.”