Southwest CEO Disputes His Own Company's Directive, Now Claiming That People Won't Be Fired for Refusing the Vaccine

I don't know if he's spinning for the public -- lying about not firing people -- or if this represents an actual shift in the company's position.

Because, as "Nice Deb" Heine reports, the company previously announced that anyone who was not vaccinated by late November would be fired.

During an interview with ABC News Tuesday, Gary Kelly, the CEO of Southwest Airlines, stated that no employees will be fired over the company's vaccine mandate. However, the airline announced on October 4 that all 56,000 U.S. Southwest employees needed to get vaccinated against COVID-19 by November 24, or face termination.

...

He did acknowledge that the vaccine mandate is "very controversial," and not something he wanted for his company.

"This is a government mandate, it's a presidential order, and we're doing our best to comply with that according to the deadlines that have been set," Kelly said.

...

"We're not going to fire any employees over this. We're urging all of our employees to get vaccinated. If they can't get vaccinated, we're urging them to seek an accommodation, so we'll do everything we can to support our people here," he said.

A company-wide guidance, obtained by American Greatness, specifically stated that failure to comply with the new vaccine policy would result in termination.

He had previously said that, as a federal contractor, the company had "no choice" but to impose the mandate.

Um, except for turning down future government contract work.

Let the US government work with its partner and model -- the Chinese government.

Also at the link: He disputes that a sick-out/slowdown is causing the flight cancelations. Actually, he puts it in a very strange way: He says there's "no evidence" of that.

Is this really something you need evidence for?

posted by Ace at 12:11 PM

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