Worker Fallout Worsens As Mandates Approach

Major crisis: Worker rebellion grows over vaccine mandates

Art Moore 

The fact that about half of the 10,000 employees at two major defense contractors in Wichita, Kansas, are unvaccinated as the deadline looms for President Biden's mandate illustrates a growing crisis, with consequences far beyond the companies themselves.

Private companies that want to continue their lucrative contracts with the federal government have until Dec. 8 to comply. By that date all of their employees must be fully vaccinated, meaning they must receive their last COVID-19 shot at least two weeks before the deadline, according to U.S. government guidance.

But aircraft companies Textron Inc and Spirit AeroSystems are "going to lose a lot of employees over this," said Cornell Adams, head of the local machinists union district, in an interview with Reuters.

Adams explained that many workers don't necessarily object to the vaccines, but they strongly oppose what they see as government interference in personal health decisions.

Across the nation, thousands of U.S. workers could lose their jobs, Reuters noted, with union leaders, workers and company executives warning of the impact on an economy facing stagflation, inflation combined with sluggish growth.

Separate from Biden's vaccine mandate for federal workers and the employees of federal contractors is the announced requirement that private companies with 100 or more workers must ensure that all of their workers get a COVID-19 vaccine or be subject to rigorous testing.

The Department of Labor said Monday it will publish in the coming days a rule on the mandate Biden announced Sept. 9. The OSHA rule is estimated to cover about two-thirds of the private sector workforce.

Meanwhile:

• U.S. prisons are facing serious staff shortages as officers quit amid the mandates.
• Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva is warning that the mandates are causing a "mass exodus" in his department that threatens public safety amid a rise in violent crime.
• The Marine Corps has warned that any Marine who refuses the COVID vaccine and failed to obtain an exemption by Nov. 28 will be kicked out.
• In New York City -- a day after 9,000 city workers were put on unpaid leave for not complying with Mayor Bill de Blasio's mandate -- the mayor blasted city union leaders "downright unpatriotic" for opposing his order. De Blasio threatend "consequences" for the 2,300 firefighters who participated in an alleged sickout that left 18 fire and ladder companies "temporarily out of service" and many more understaffed.
• More than 7,000 employees of Boeing Co have applied for religious exemptions and about 1,000 are seeking medical exemptions, Reuters reported, amounting to about 6% of the aircraft maker's approximately 125,000 U.S employees. Last week, workers protested at the company's Auburn, Washington, plant, with one calling the mandate "illegal, immoral and impractical." The veteran program analyst said employees "are standing together against a company and government trampling on our rights."
• Two workers for the Rhode Island-based industrical conglomerate Textron who requested religious exemptions told Reuters they were quizzed by human resources representatives on the name of their church leaders and asked detailed questions about their Christian faith.
• Raytheon Technologies' CEO Greg Hayes last week warned the defense firm will lose "several thousand" employees because of the mandate.
• A group representing FedEx, United Parcel Service and other cargo carriers warned it would be virtually impossible for all of their workers to be vaccinated by the deadline.
• Mercedes-Benz USA, in anticipation of the mandate for private companies, is requiring that workers be vaccinated by Jan. 4. But less than half of the company's workers at U.S. import processing centers are vaccinated, Reuters reported, citing to a source familiar with the matter.
• NASA scientists and engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, protested against the White House vaccine mandate Monday, demanding alternatives to "the vaccines' dubious performance."

New York City firefighters last Thursday protested in front of Mayor Bill de Blasios official residence:

At Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix on Monday, airline employees and protesters gathered to protest airline vaccine mandates:

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America Will See Consequences Of Its Self-Inflicted Wound In 2022

 MICHAEL SNYDER

Are we about to witness one of the greatest self-inflicted economic wounds in history?  Vaccine mandate deadlines are starting to arrive, and large numbers of very qualified people are losing their jobs as a result.  Of course this comes at a very bad time, because we are already in the midst of the most epic worker shortage in U.S. history.  

Despite the biggest hiring push that I have ever seen in my entire lifetime, businesses all over America are still desperate for workers.  The funny thing is that lots of available workers should theoretically be out there somewhere.  The number of Americans that are currently working is still about five million less than the peak that was hit just before the pandemic arrived.  

So where did all of those missing workers go?  That is a question that we desperately need an answer for, because millions of workers seem to have evaporated from the system.  Now the vaccine mandates are going to make things far worse, because millions of Americans that are actually good at their jobs are going to be ruthlessly terminated, and finding replacements for them is going to be exceedingly difficult.

For instance, you can't just pull guys off the street and have them fly planes.  Very soon, large numbers of pilots will be sent packing on a permanent basis, and pilots for American Airlines gave us a taste of what is coming by engaging in a "sick out" over the weekend...

American Airlines canceled another 634 flights on Sunday, more than 12% of its total operations for the day, the company said Sunday.

The airline has now canceled more than 1,500 flights since Friday, as it deals with weather issues and staffing shortages that started last week.

Of course American Airlines is trying to blame "the weather" for these canceled flights, but everyone knows what is really going on.

If these airlines don't reverse their mandates, pretty soon we will have widespread air travel headaches on a permanent basis in this nation.

In New York City, Friday was the deadline for municipal workers to get vaccinated, and more than 26,000 of them have refused to comply...

Twenty-six percent of municipal employees in New York City were still unvaccinated following a Friday deadline that mandated workers get the COVID-19 vaccine.

A significant jump in vaccinations occurred among city employees due to the deadline, the city said, according to The Associated Press, but more than 26,000 workers have not uploaded proof of their vaccination status and face unpaid leave as a result.

Moving forward, all of the work that those 26,000 workers used to do simply will not get done.

Already, a total of 26 fire houses have had to be completely shut down...

The FDNY shuttered 26 fire houses citywide on Saturday due to staff shortages caused by the COVID-19 vaccination mandate, according to furious elected officials, who ripped the move as "unconscionable" -- and warned it could have catastrophic consequences.

So will this cost lives?

Of course it will.

Firefighters responded to a 1:30 a.m. call Saturday at a building in Washington Heights, where fire broke out in the building superintendent's basement apartment. First responders quickly contained and extinguished the fire.

Meanwhile, trash is starting to pile up around the city at a very alarming rate...

Trash bags can be spotted all over the Midwood neighborhood of Brooklyn, where some residents said that it has been days since their trash was last picked up. A few said they realized something was off earlier in the week, as one missed pickup happens, but they started to think there was a problem after the second missed time.

On both residential streets and commercial areas, the trash bags on the sidewalk are piled several feet high in some instances. One resident who has lived in the area for about 40 years said she has never seen the area as dirty as has been the past few days.

The vaccine mandates are absurd, and they are going to cause enormous problems all over the country.

Countless supply chain workers are going to be pulled out of our supply chains in the coming months, and we are already facing painful shortages from coast to coast...

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