Delta CEO: We Won’t Force-Vaxx Our Employees, Vaccine Mandates Are A Blunt Instrument Photo: In this May 14, 2020 file photo, several dozen mothballed Delta Air Lines jets are parked on a closed runway at Kansas City International Airport in Kansas City, Mo. Delta Air Lines will require new employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 starting Monday, May 17, 2021. The airline won't impose the same requirement on current employees, more than 60% of whom are vaccinated, a Delta spokesman said Friday. Delta has about 74,000 employees. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)
Delta Airlines, which does business with the U.S. government and is considered a federal contractor, says it will not cave in on its decision to oppose President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate, which requires that all federal contractors have their employees vaccinated. The airline’s CEO, Ed Bastian, called the vaccine mandate “divisive” and a “very blunt instrument.”
Bastian said the company has been able to get its staff vaccinated without a mandate. In an interview with Fox News, he said almost all employees will be vaccinated without the “divisiveness of a mandate” by trusting people’s decisions “without forcing them over the threat of their jobs.”
According to Bastian, 90 percent of Delta’s staff had already been jabbed before the mandate was ordered, the Daily Mail reported.
‘It’s a very blunt instrument,’ he said of the mandate. “You can work collaboratively… trusting your people to make the right decisions, respecting their decisions and not forcing them over the loss of their jobs.”
Bastian expects another 5 percent more of the staff will be vaccinated by November.
“The reason the mandate was put in by the president, I believe, was because they wanted to make sure companies had a plan to get their employees vaccinated,” Bastian said. “A month before the president came out with the mandate, we had already announced our plan to get all of our people vaccinated. And the good news is the plan is working.”
Unlike other CEOs, Bastian said he would not threaten to fire unvaccinated employees. Instead, he would make “accommodations” for those employees, Fox News reported.
In August, Delta announced it would impose a $200 monthly surcharge on unvaccinated employees.
Some Twitter users found Bastian’s message to be underhanded. “This is so disingenuous. Put people through all the pain and aguish worrying about whether they will be fired so that those who have no options are forced to take the vaccine. Then it’s ‘Oh, never mind. It’s too divisive’. Don’t let @Delta deceive you,” Lar Gand @DaxamVoice tweeted.
“Delta charges $200 more (per month?) for insurance if not vaccinated. Ed ain’t telling the whole story,” tweeted mellon @ItsOkayTooday.
Blake C Mann @Blake_C_Mann tweeted, “If you were only 20% jabbed as a company would you still take the same position? I think not!”
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