American Airlines has become the first major U.S. airline that offers incentives for employees who voluntarily get one of the vaccines available against Covid-19.
American’s management has announced that those who go and get the vaccine will receive an extra vacation day in 2022 and $50 in recognition points, American’s employee rewards system.
Instead of rolling out a militant policy of mandatory vaccines for all employees like United Airlines has been thinking about American is going the way of least resistance and tries to encourage people with incentives.
The Dallas Business Journal has published an excerpt of a letter sent to all AA employees:
American Airlines is offering a couple of perks for employees who get a COVID-19 vaccine, according to a letter American management sent to employees Friday.
U.S.-based employees who get the vaccine will receive an extra vacation day in 2022 and $50 in recognition points. American Airlines Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: AAL) has over 102,000 employees as of Dec. 31, 2020.
“As we close out the first week of March, we remain optimistic that 2021 will be a year of recovery for American. We still don’t know how quickly demand will return, but we know vaccines will be an important part of the recovery,” CEO Doug Parker and President Robert Isom wrote in the letter. “That’s why we are fully engaged in the effort to make vaccinations available to our team as quickly and widely as possible.” …
American noted how the distribution of a third approved vaccine by pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson began this week for employees based at Chicago O’Hare.
“Get vaccinated as soon as possible — to protect yourself and others,” Parker and Isom said in the letter. “More than 500,000 people in the United States have lost their lives to COVID-19, including some of our own colleagues.”
As another article by Vox last month noted, nearly half of all 2020 Covid-19 deaths were of people age 80 or older. If you include people age 60 or older, the share of deaths reaches almost 90 percent.
So far for the deaths but obviously even young and healthy people can get and transmit Covid to others which presents a unique challenge for a company whose primary purpose is mass transportation.
The issue for companies like American Airlines now is to outweigh how to protect both the workforce, their families and of course their customers.
Easiest way forward would be to offer a vaccine and hope that the vast majority of people both in the employee pool but also the population will take it. American has 133,700 employees as of recent and going into battle mode to force all of them vaccinated like United intends isn’t a great approach and likely wouldn’t work. No doubt a lot of expensive litigation would be the result.
Conclusion
Offering an extra day of paid vacation next year plus $50 in recognition awards is not only more practical but also a signal of goodwill and care. It remains to be seen how many employees will take up this offer and claim these incentives.
These days we’re being bombarded daily with opinions, surveys and stats in various media sources when it comes to the immunization effort. I don’t expect this campaign American Airlines has started to fundamentally change opinions of their employees whether or not to receive the vaccine but maybe it will provide one more argument to just get it over with. Hopefully everyone who wants to get vaccinated will soon have the chance to get it.
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“The issue for companies like American Airlines now is to outweigh how to protect both the workforce, their families and of course their customers.”
American Airlines is not responsible for any of those people and American Airlines is incapable of protecting them. Safety in the air is “don’t crash the plane.” If I don’t want any risk of malaria, I don’t walk thru the swamp in shorts and a T-shirt. If I do not want any risk of community infection, I stay out of hospitals and off airplanes completely.
If American is so sure that the vaxx is so safe and so effective, why don’t they do what the manufacturer of the vaxx won’t do; indemnify the health and life of those who submit? If an employee gets Guillain Barre, American should pay disability until the person (they won’t) completely recovers. If a person loses a pregnancy, American should pay for the lost life. Similarly if a person dies.
Caveat Emptor.
I do have a question as to why American should pay for the loss of a pregnancy? Are you speaking about the loss of a baby caused by American’s negligence or just because nature took it’s course and a mother miscarried? Two completely different scenarios of which only one would I see American bearing any responsibility. I just wanted to clarify your point.
Some are miscarrying after receiving this experimental jab.
In this case it is up to the mother to decide if the risk of getting the vaccine is worth it. Because American is not forcing employees to get the vaccine they would not be responsible for a pregnant employee that CHOOSES to get vaccinated. BTW there is not proof that the miscarriage is true. There have been people posting incorrect information about the miscarriages to scare the public. Supposedly a women did have a miscarriage after receiving the vaccine but there is no way to know for certain if the vaccine cause the miscarriage or if there were other factors. It is the same with people that have died after getting the vaccine. People can have unlying conditions or factors that can contribute to either one of these things happening: death or miscarriage. We are not scientific experts that would possibly know if there is a direct correlation between the vaccine and these events. Statistically speaking the anomalies are pretty small when you look at the numbers of people getting vaccinated. Everyone should decide for themselves what is right for them and it is not my place to criticize anyone for what ever choice they make.
You said
“In this case it is up to the mother to decide if the risk of getting the vaccine is worth it.”
Indeed, she needs to review all of the scientific papers, beginning with the animal studies so she can be in a position of informed consent. But, of course, there have not been any animal studies! The current vast vaxx campaign is the animal study!
And, in the past, Pregnancy being such an important and frail condition, no drug or medical procedure had been approved for use on pregnant women or women considering pregnancy.
Is accepting an old man who is up to his eyeballs in money conflicts of interest saying “what the heck, pregnant women should get the vaxx so we know what will happen with pregnant women?” a kind of informed consent?
Nope. If American Airlines will accept 100% liability that neither the inventors nor the government of the US will accept, then maybe a pregnant woman or a woman considering pregnancy in the near future might agree.
How much is your baby worth?
In addition to cases of blood disorders, blindness, deafness and Bell’s palsy – of which there are thousands of cases worldwide, mostly after Pfizer’s.
I definitely do not think it should be mandatory. But I do think that offering the incentive to employees that wish to get vaccinated is a nice step in the right direction. If an employee planned on getting the vaccine anyway it is nice to get a little extra perk. The choice to get vaccinated is personal and should not be forced on anyone. Hopefully there will be enough people that will choose to get it that we will get to herd immunity.
A (wo)man should be paid for contributing to the company’s bottom line, full stop. I don’t want the company interviewing my doctor, my religious guide or, even, my lover to see if my personal life aligns with their political, etc., ideas.
One should not do business with a company that won’t stand behind their product with everything they have. Sticking to the travel metaphor, why would American Airlines check their airplanes if they had no liability under any circumstances for their negligence; keep those 737’s flying, we don’t care.
Caveat emptor.
ps, adverse pregnancy outcomes (and the other reactions I and others mentioned) are on the FDA list of adverse events; they already know their product will adversely affect some (not all).
80% experience adverse side effects. Zero long term data. $50 ?!!! NICE !!!!
My company has offered every employee two additional vacation days for COVID vaccinations
Not antivaxx/low IQ but you’re the guinea pig for accepting a workplace bribe for the Windows Update. Be treated like 2nd class citizens if you don’t jab up or get various auto immune diseases and cancer later on if you do.
Not antivaxx/low IQ but you’re the guinea pig for accepting a workplace bribe for the Windows Update. Be treated like 2nd class citizens if you don’t jab up or get various auto immune diseases and cancer later on if you do.