United Airlines will fire 600 who refuse shots
United Airlines said it will terminate about 600 employees for refusing to comply with its vaccination requirement, putting the company at the forefront of the battle over vaccine mandates as the economy moves through a bumpy pandemic recovery.
The airline also said that 99 percent of its U.S. workforce of 67,000 had been vaccinated, a sign that mandates can be effective at a corporate level.
More companies have announced vaccine requirements as the government puts increasing pressure on them to help the country increase its inoculation rate. This month, President Joe Biden mandated that all businesses with 100 or more workers require their staff to be vaccinated or face weekly testing.
“This was an incredibly difficult decision but keeping our team safe has always been our first priority,” Scott Kirby, United’s chief executive, and Brett Hart, its president, said in a memo sent to staff Tuesday.
On Wednesday, a spokeswoman confirmed that the company had already begun its process to terminate 593 U.S.-based employees who declined to be vaccinated. Workers losing their jobs because of noncompliance with the mandate make up less than 1 percent of the airline’s U.S. workforce.
“We will work with folks if during that process they decide to get vaccinated,” the spokeswoman said.
United Airlines did not give a timeline for the termination process.
United has said that unvaccinated workers can request an exemption based on religious or medical reasons, and that exempt workers will be placed on leave, in many cases unpaid, starting Saturday. The airline postponed the decision to place those workers on leave until Oct. 15, pending a lawsuit filed by six employees, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union said in a statement Monday.
In early August, United announced that all its employees would be required to provide proof of vaccination within five weeks of a vaccine’s full approval by the Food and Drug Administration, or by Oct. 25, whichever came first. The FDA in late August granted full approval to PfizerBioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine for people 16 and older. At the time, United warned that it would fire employees who did not follow the new policy.