The South Carolina Trucking Association is opposed to a new House Bill that keeps businesses from determining their own COVID-19 vaccination policies.
The bill, H.3126 was passed by the South Carolina House Ways and Means Committee and has been amended to prevent business owners from setting their own vaccination policies for their workers, reported News 2.
The organization says that they believe the issue of vaccines should be discussed on a state level and that it should be left up to businesses to decide how they wish to approach COVID-19 safety. They say that, while they are not anti-vaccine, they are indeed anti-federal-vaccine-mandate.
“Our organization generally opposes government mandates. This amended legislation is a mandate of sorts; it’s a mandated prohibition on the rights of free enterprise,” said Rick Todd, President & CEO of the South Carolina Trucking Association.
“This [bill] prohibits business owners’ freedom to establish their own workplace vaccination policy decisions, and sets up an erosion of freedoms, owner rights, and their ability to establish their own conditions for employment.”
“We assert that businesses should be able to keep the right to set their own conditions for employment, and people can choose what’s in their own best interest.”
Todd says that the state must ensure businesses will be free from potential lawsuits related to COVID, workplace safety, and health should the bill move forward, and that the state should “realize that they have changed the course of SC’s business climate.”