Workers face job losses as vaccine mandates kick in
Washington State University head football coach Nick Rolovich, along with four of his assistants, fired for failing to comply with the state's COVID-19 vaccine requirement. Rolovich was reportedly the highest paid state employee.
Thousands of police officers and firefighters in cities like Chicago and Baltimore could also soon be out of work, as mandates take effect that require them to report their vaccination status or submit to regular testing.
And at General Electric, workers are required to be vaccinated by Dec. 8th - per President Biden’s mandate for federal contractors.
In fact, unvaccinated workers across America are facing possible job cuts as a growing number of states, cities and private companies enforce vaccine mandates.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has been battling with the police union, which came out against the mandate for city workers.
“What we've seen from the Fraternal Order of Police, in particularly the leadership, is a lot of misinformation, a lot of half-truths and frankly flat out lies, in order to induce an insurrection, and we're not having that.”
About a third of Chicago’s more than 12,700 police employees missed a Friday deadline to report their vaccination status - something Chicago police union president still pushed back against this week.
“Hold the line if you can hold the line.”
There’s also tension at big companies.
Some 200 Boeing employees last week staged a protest over the company’s vaccine requirement.
In addition to vaccine rules for federal contractors, the White House is expected to soon finalize guidelines for private businesses with 100 or more employees.
The mandates have received mixed reactions.
Many companies support them, but smaller employers have expressed concern the policy could lead to losing workers in a tight labor market.
But while controversial, the mandates have also been effective.
The White House COVID-19 task force said last week that vaccination rates in the U.S. have risen by more than 20 percentage points after multiple institutions adopted requirements in recent months.
