United Airlines requires all U.S. employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by the end of October. United Airlines announced Friday that all employees will be required to receive a Covid-19 vaccine, making it the first major United Airlines to announce such a requirement. The airline will also require all US employees to get vaccinated against the virus by the end of October, joining a growing number of major companies responding to an increase in cases.
United Airlines will require all its 67,000 US employees to get vaccined against COVID-19 by October 25 at the latest or risk termination if necessary. Some airlines, including United, have opposed vaccination requirements for workers and offered incentives such as additional paid time off to get vaccinated. Hours before Uniteds’ announcement on Friday, budget airline Frontier Airlines said its employees would get vaccinated by October 1 after testing positive for the virus.
Airlines such as United Airlines Holdings Inc. had opposed vaccination requirements for all workers and instead offered incentives such as extra pay or time off to get vaccinated. Delta Air Lines has required newly hired employees to provide proof of vaccination since May. Some airlines, including United, had tried to get workers to vaccinate through incentives such as bonuses, pay or additional leave.
United is the first major airline to announce that it will require vaccinations for all workers at its Chicago-based United which employs about 67,000 people in the United States. The airline will require vaccinations for all new hires by mid-June. United Airlines, the world’s largest airline, is also the first of the major U.S. carriers to require vaccinations. Its decision follows similar moves of a number of other companies, including Walmart, which employs more than 2 million people, and Tyson Foods, which employs about 120,000 people.
After the announcement of Unite, Disney and Walmart announced vaccination rules for employees and Microsoft, Google and Facebook said they would require vaccination certificates for all employees and visitors to their US offices. Tyson Foods said this week that its entire U.S. workforce of over 139,000 workers must be vaccinated against COVID-19. Other firms have mandated masks in office and delayed a return to work. This week Tyson, who had previously announced that all US employees would be vaccinated by November, caught the eye among companies by relying on many low-paid workers who could not do their jobs remotely.
The United Food and Commercial Workers president criticized Tyson Foods for introducing the vaccine only with urgent FDA approval. United Airlines executives called for an update on safety, citing “compelling evidence” of the vaccine’s efficacy. Here’s what employers are allowed to do Google Biden, N.Y., and some states have issued vaccination orders for employees, but only for federal employees.
The airline will require all US employees to get vaccinated, the company said on Friday, citing data showing that effective vaccines can prevent serious illnesses and deaths from COVID-19.
Employees must prove within five weeks that they have received the appropriate doses of Pfizer and Johnson’& Johnson vaccines after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gives full approval to one of the vaccines – five weeks or until September 20 whichever comes first – on Friday in a memo reviewed by Fox Business. Employees must provide proof by October 25 that they have received at least two doses of each of the two vaccines – one dose for each of Johnson & Johnson’s and a single dose five weeks after federal regulators gave them full approval. Employees can upload their vaccination certificates to the employee’s website.
United said it had held talks with its unions about the new rules but could not reach an agreement with them, and the airline gave employees until the end of October to prove vaccination status and said it would not proceed with the vaccines until it received full federal approval. Employees who refuse to provide proof of vaccination could be fired. United said the deadline was driven by a sense of urgency to protect its workforce, family members and customers. The airline cited statistics indicating that there has been an increase in COVID-19 cases and that those who have been vaccinated or had at least one vaccine are less likely to be hospitalized or die from the virus despite the recent increase. A United spokesman said that the airline will review whether employees have not been vaccinated for health or religious reasons and whether they wear a mask at all times.
Potrivit to the company, many United employees report they have already been vaccinated, including over 90% of the pilots and about 80% of flight attendants. The airline from Chicago estimates that 90% of its pilots and 80% of its flight attendants are vaccinated. In comparison, only 60% of American Airlines pilots are vaccinated, according to a letter to members of their union, the Allied Pilots Association, on August 5 encouraging pilots to get vaccinated.
The decree will take effect on October 25, five weeks after the FDA issued its first non-emergency approval for a COVID-19 vaccine, a date that has yet to come.
