Farm groups are awaiting details on how the U.S. Labor Department will carry out President Joe Biden’s plan to force employers with more than 100 workers to ensure all are vaccinated or tested regularly for COVID.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration will issue an emergency rule, but no timeline has been set. Unvaccinated employees will have to produce a negative test at least weekly, according to the White House, which provided few other details, including whether the 100-worker mandate will count seasonal as well as year-round employees.

Washington Growers League executive director Mike Gempler said he was surprised by the mandate. “It’s an extraordinary time with extraordinary problems, so I think people have to take steps they normally wouldn’t think of,” he said.

“I feel like we’re going backward instead of forward, so someone has to do something,” Gempler said. “I really see vaccinations as our way out of it.”

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee have required vaccinations for state employees. Their mandates have drawn lawsuits in both states. Republican governors in at least five states vowed to sue the Biden administration over mandating vaccinations in the private sector.

Biden congratulated his administration — “America is in better shape than it was seven months ago when I took office” — and blamed a “tough stretch” with COVID on the unvaccinated.

“Many of us are frustrated with the nearly 80 million Americans who are still not vaccinated, even though the vaccine is safe, effective and free,” he said.

Washington State Dairy Federation executive director Dan Wood said a vaccination rule may put agricultural employers in the position of enforcing a policy that doesn’t fit some circumstances.

“Are you going to terminate an unvaccinated employee who works alone in a tractor?” he asked. “Are you going to terminate someone who says, ‘I’m not answering private medical questions?’”

Wood said coaxing rather than forcing workers to get vaccinated may be more effective in the current political climate. “It’s hard to get people to work together when government leaders continue to lose credibility,” he said.

Tyson Foods mandated vaccinations in early August. Since then, the percentage of vaccinated Tyson workers has gone to 72% from 45%, a figure touted by the White House to support Biden’s plan.

United Farm Workers organizer Elizabeth Strater said some farmworkers will balk at mandatory vaccinations, though they won’t have much choice.

“A part-time librarian can quit over this, but not a farmworker,” she said. “They won’t choose to lose their jobs. People are doing this work because they need to.”

An emergency rule may not be in place until after peak harvest for much of agriculture. Once a rule is announced, workers will need up to six weeks to become fully vaccinated.

WAFLA executive director Dan Fazio said foreign seasonal workers should have little problem meeting the mandate. He estimated that 95% of the workers with H-2A visas are vaccinated.

Workers come to the U.S. knowing they will live with other farmworkers in group housing, said Fazio, whose organization helps farmers obtain H-2A workers.

“It would be a safety problem not to be vaccinated,” he said. “The H-2A workers, by and large, are all vaccinated.”

Northwest Horticultural Council senior vice president Kate Tynan said the rule details will matter, including who is responsible for testing unvaccinated employees.

Many agricultural employers, however, already have encouraged vaccinations, she said.

“It could very well be that for some folks that this won’t be much of a change from current practices,” she said.