United means business when it comes to their COVID19 vaccination policy. Among airlines, United has the strictest vaccine mandate to the point where they are willing to let go of their unvaccinated workforce. In August, United required COVID19 vaccination to their 67,000 US employees by fall or else face termination. On Thursday, the carrier announced that the number of United’s unvaccinated workforce dropped from 593 to 320.
After seeing the number of unvaccinated employees drop, United said in a statement that “Our vaccine policy continues to prove requirements work”.
United’s Unvaccinated Workforce
Even if United’s workforce has high compliance to the company’s vaccine mandate, there are a few who are unhappy. The carrier is facing two separate vaccine mandate-related lawsuits. In one of the lawsuits, the employee alleges that United didn’t accommodate the religious exemption request.
Last week, before the vaccine mandate took effect, six employees tried to block the vaccination requirement via a federal judge. The employees accused the airline of a “pattern of discrimination against employees who requested religious or medical accommodations”.
Around 2,000 United employees requested to get medical or religious exemptions. United announced that employees granted medical and religious exemptions will have to take an indefinite leave of absence.
Different Approaches by Airlines
Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly said that he doesn’t believe that the company should mandate vaccination. However, he also warned that federal mandates can change all that and make COVID19 vaccination mandatory.
Kelly said that “So we at Southwest Airlines may be compelled by federal law to require employees to be vaccinated”.
Instead of requiring vaccines, Southwest incentivized employees who took the vaccine. The Southwest offered extra pay for their fully vaccinated staff. Kelly said that “This pandemic has to be defeated or we will never get back to normal and achieve prosperity”. He added, “We are still losing money. We risk job security. We risk pay raises”.
Frontier Airlines, on the other hand, postponed its plan to require regular testing for unvaccinated employees. Instead, Frontier will wait for the federal rules regarding vaccination and testing for large companies.
