Promotional products companies with 100 or more employees, and other U.S.-based firms of that size across industries, will no longer be subject to a federal mandate that required workers to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or submit to weekly coronavirus tests to confirm they don’t have the virus – at least for the foreseeable future.

That’s because on Thursday, January 13, the Supreme Court, in a split decision, ruled to temporarily block the implementation of President Joe Biden’s vaccinate-or-test standard as other legal challenges play out, essentially saying the administration exceeded its legal authority with the mandate.

The ruling, which takes effect immediately, stops the mandate from being enforced by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Had the court allowed the rules to remain in place and be enforced, more than 80 million private sector workers would have been affected.

The court’s decision to block the mandate will remain in place until legal challenges centered on constitutionality are concluded through the justice system, which could include further Supreme Court consideration.

The Supreme Court has a 6-3 conservative majority. Conservatives ruled in the majority opinion to block the Biden administration mandate. The three liberal justices dissented.

“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,” the court wrote in an unsigned majority 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.”

Conservatives continued: “OSHA has never before imposed such a mandate. Nor has Congress. Indeed, although Congress has enacted significant legislation addressing the COVID-19 pandemic, it has declined to enact any measure similar to what OSHA has promulgated here.”

In their joint dissenting opinion, the liberal justices said that their conservative counterparts on the Supreme Court were overstepping their authority by overruling health experts.

“Acting outside of its competence and without legal basis, the court displaces the judgements of the government officials given the responsibility to respond to workplace health emergencies,” the liberal justices wrote.

In the wake of the Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling, Biden called on business leaders to voluntarily institute vaccination requirements at their companies to “protect their workers, customers, and communities.”

“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,” Biden said in a statement. “It is now up to states and individual employers to determine whether to make their workplaces as safe as possible for employees, and whether their businesses will be safe for consumers during this pandemic by requiring employees to take the simple and effective step of getting vaccinated.”

Key aspects of Biden’s mandate had just gone into effect on Jan. 10. The rules had swiftly faced legal challenges after Biden announced them in September. The New Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit suspended the mandate for a time, before the Ohio-based Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals subsequently reinstated them.

Some 27 States led by Republicans, along with businesses, challenged the mandate in court. Business groups also criticized the rules, saying they would be too expensive and would exacerbate labor shortages as workers would quit rather than submit to testing or “coerced” vaccination.

Some executives in promo expressed similar concerns, adding that they opposed the mandate also because they felt it was government overreach into the private sector.

“This is a step in the right direction,” said Gregg Emmer, a member of Counselor’s Power 50 list of promo’s most influential people and vice president/chief marketing officer at Top 40 distributor Kaeser & Blair (asi/238600), of the Supreme Court’s ruling. He added that he was glad the court had “delivered the smackdown to Biden’s illegal actions.”

An executive at a Top 40 supplier firm, who wished to remain anonymous given the controversial nature of the topic, said that they and the firm’s leadership team are fully vaccinated.

“However,” the executive said, “the decision to be vaccinated was a personal decision –just as all personal-health-related decisions should be. With this in mind, I am relieved that the Supreme Court overturned the employer vaccination mandate, as I have grave concerns that, in this case, forcing the perceived cure (a vaccine) on employees/citizens, while well-intentioned, has far greater potential for negative long-term consequences, than the problem (a virus) they were seeking to address.”

The C-Suite leader doesn’t expect many large promo firms to go forward with their own internal vaccination requirements. “A well-publicized Supreme Court ruling would likely make the enforcement of such a standard very difficult among employees, and could raise subsequent questions on personal liberties, HIPPA, etc,” the executive said.

Meanwhile, a Top 40 distributor executive had strong words regarding the mandate and the federal government’s handling of the pandemic.

“Our government has failed spectacularly in virtually every phase of this pandemic and this latest disjointed blunder is consistent with everything we’ve seen the last two years,” said the executive, who requested anonymity. “They long ago fumbled away whatever remaining shred of credibility they had left. Stop waiting on the government for solutions and figure out how to best run your business using your own judgement and discretion.”

Other executives favored the mandate, saying it would help significantly in the ongoing battle against COVID-19.

“I see this as a much-needed step in the fight against COVID and as critical to the recovery of the U.S. economy,” a C-Suite leader at another Top 40 promo company told ASI Media not long after the mandate was originally announced. “While this is understandably a hot-button issue and federal requirements should be a last resort solution, we are unfortunately left with few alternatives.”

The executive continued: “Without this requirement, the ability for companies to return to the office and to normal operations will be curtailed – and with particular importance for our industry, travel and in-person events will continue to be limited.”

Meanwhile, Kathy Finnerty Thomas said she was disappointed in the Supreme Court’s ruling.

The president of Chandler, AZ-based distributorship Stowebridge Promotion Group (asi/337500) felt the mandate “makes total sense for companies where people are working in offices or production environments together, so they have some level of assurance for their own safety and protection and the comfort of knowing that they won’t be exposed at work with the risk of taking it home to other family members. I don’t think it is necessary to require this of employees working from home.”

Thomas noted that all employees at her company are fully vaccinated. Among other concerns, including burdens on the healthcare system in which her grown children work (one’s an ICU nurse, one’s a respiratory therapist), Thomas worried that the lack of a federal mandate could have direct implications for promo.

“I think the biggest impact on our industry will be in suppliers who have largely unvaccinated and untested staffs who continually miss agreed upon deadlines,” she shared. “It is constantly disappointing and I don’t see any improvement given the fact that we are almost two years into this issue.”