Southwest drops plan to put unvaccinated staff on unpaid leave starting in December https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/19/southwest-vaccine-mandate-unpaid-leave-exemptions.html Southwest Airlines has scrapped a plan to put unvaccinated employees who have applied for but haven’t received a religious or medical exemption on unpaid leave starting by a federal deadline in December. Southwest Airlines and American Airlines are among the carriers that are federal contractors and subject to a Biden administration requirement that their employees are vaccinated against Covid-19 by Dec. 8 unless they are exempt for medical or religious reasons. Rules for federal contractors are stricter than those expected for large companies, which will allow for regular Covid testing as an alterative to a vaccination.
And down they go. The problem is that there is no actual federal vaccine mandate in place, just some hand wringing and platitudes. There is no executive order mandating vaccines. There is no law mandating vaccines. There is no court order mandating vaccines. These companies got out over their skis in their haste to signal their profound wokeness and, of course, their own legal counsel informed them that they were about to lose major lawsuits and a good portion of their customers. Capitalism is self-correcting that way.
American Airlines appears to be following a similar route today... American Airlines flight attendants union tells employees they won't be fired if they refuse to get vaccinated by the airline's deadline https://www.businessinsider.com/ame...-unvaccinated-employees-wont-be-fired-2021-10