Skift Take
The time for soft pedaling is over at United Airlines. Not just was it the very first major U.S. provider to mandate jabs for all workers, United is now going an action even more and running the risk of possible claims by putting employees with religious exemptions on leave– without a paycheck.
Tom Lowry
United Airlines staff members who receive religious exemptions from the company for COVID-19 vaccinations will be placed on temporary, unpaid individual leave from Oct. 2, the U.S. airline stated in a Wednesday memo to personnel.
The business stated the workers will be permitted to go back to their work place once new screening and security treatments remain in place.
The U.S. carrier is taking a tough line on employees who decrease to get vaccinated and ended up being the very first U.S. carrier in early August to reveal it would mandate vaccines for staff members.
United stated in the memo “more than half of our staff members who were unvaccinated on the day (Aug. 6) we announced the requirement are now immunized.”
“Offered the alarming stats listed above, we can no longer permit unvaccinated people back into the workplace till we much better understand how they might connect with our customers and their vaccinated coworkers,” the airline stated the memo.
For pilots and flight attendants and other customer-facing staff members winning spiritual exemptions they will remain off work forever.
“Once the pandemic meaningfully recedes, you will be invited back to the group on active status,” United stated.
For some workers in non-customer facing roles, United will more quickly allow go back to work however require unvaccinated workers to “go through weekly COVID-19 screening, use a mask at all times.”
United said for some staff members an “official go back to work date might be substantially later on” than mid-October.
Staff members whose ask for spiritual exemptions are denied must be immunized within five weeks or they will be fired, United stated. United said the restriction and requirements are comparable for staff members looking for medical exemptions but workers winning exemptions will be placed on short-lived medical leave.
On Friday, American Airlines said it would not provide unique leave starting next month to unvaccinated staff members who need to quarantine due to COVID-19.
Last month, Delta Air Lines said workers will have to pay $200 more monthly for their company-sponsored healthcare strategy if they select to not be immunized versus COVID-19.
On Wednesday, WestJet Group in Canada stated reliable Oct. 30 staff members will be required to be completely vaccinated.
Read Full Memo Here Acquired by Skift:
Download (PDF, 90KB)( Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington and Sanjana Shivdas in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Aurora Ellis)
This post was written by David Shepardson and Sanjana Shivdas from Reuters and was legally licensed through the Market Dive publisher network. Please direct all licensing concerns to [e-mail protected]
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