D-FW anti-mandate activists plan to keep pressure on airlines until vaccine requirements dropped

Leaders of groups mobilizing anti-vaccine mandate rallies nationwide against American Airlines and Southwest Airlines say they have no plans to quit until the airlines completely abandon divisive requirements.

However, anti-mandate advocates said pilots did not call in sick on busy weekends to protest vaccine requirements with airlines, and that mass delays and cancellations were only due to operational issues with the companies.

“We’re severely understaffed at the airline,” said Tom Bogart, a six-year-old Southwest Airlines pilot who has become head of Southwest Freedom Flyers. “The airline and the union both showed the data showing that sick leave was historical norms.”

Airlines

Hundreds of people demonstrate at Southwest Airlines headquarters against vaccination regulations for employees

Hundreds of employees and customers gathered outside Southwest Airlines’ headquarters in Dallas on Monday, two weeks after the company said all workers would need to be vaccinated to keep their jobs. The protest follows a similar rally at American Airlines on October 7th in Fort Worth, and a week after conspiracy theories were spread that blamed thousands of cancellations and delays a week ago for a pilots’ strike to protest vaccine mandates, something Both Southwest and the Union Pilots advocate stubbornly denied it.

Dallas-based Southwest Airlines and other major airlines are under pressure from the White House to ensure all employees are vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to comply with federal entrepreneurship rules announced in September. The Biden administration has postponed the vaccine verification deadline to January 4, 2022, which could avoid a confrontation during the busy vacation travel season.

Politicians and political activists have claimed on social media that American Airlines pilots based in Southwest and Fort Worth have called in sick to protest vaccine mandates, resulting in staff shortages that have resulted in chaotic travel weekends in recent months. A coordinated effort by employees to report sickness would be a violation of federal labor law.

Both Southwest and American, along with pilots union leaders, have denied these claims, made by political figures such as Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Donald Trump Jr.

Leaders from anti-mandate groups at both airlines said there had been no coordinated effort and that their plan was to put public pressure on companies to give up mandates.

After demonstrating outside American Airlines and Southwest Airlines headquarters in North Texas in October, activists are planning more rallies and protests across the country in the coming weeks.

Southwest Freedom Flyers is holding another rally outside Dallas Love Field, Southwest Airlines’ main airport, on Saturday in hopes of public pressure on the airline to oppose White House orders to vaccinate employees of all federal entrepreneurs Afford.

Bogart said up to 9,000 Southwest employees have signed up for the antagonistic Freedom Flyers group but have pledged to publicly pressure the company to lower vaccine requirements. The company had 55,000 employees at the end of September, according to statistics from the Bureau of Transportation.

“We all need to understand that … they are not alone,” said Bogart, a six-year-old pilot with Southwest based in Houston. “Every single domestic airline, including regional airlines and all major airlines, all have similar groups to us.”

American and Southwest have declined to say how many workers have been vaccinated, citing a lack of data due to failure to meet vaccine documentation deadlines. However, American Airlines CEO Doug Parker said the “vast majority” of his company’s employees have been vaccinated.

Despite the fact that 80% of the country’s adults received at least one dose of the vaccine, Bogart said he and others were concerned about the long-term effects of the drugs. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claims there is no evidence of long-term side effects from any of the COVID-19 vaccines approved in the United States.

Workers are also concerned that the government is “forcing” citizens through employer mandates to get vaccinated, Bogart said.

A broader aviation industry activist group, US Freedom Flyers, has organized protests outside American Airlines ‘headquarters in Dallas, in front of the airline’s second-largest hub in Charlotte and in Seattle, Alaska Airlines’ hometown, coordinator Josh Yoder said.

“We’re not releasing the pressure. We’ll increase the pressure, ”said Yoder. “The public outcry about it is enormous.”

A group of approximately 250 American Airlines employees and supporters will gather in front of American Airlines headquarters in Fort Worth on Thursday, October 7, 2021. The group protested vaccine mandates for employees after the company announced that any worker who was not fully vaccinated would be fired.

For their part, American and Southwest CEOs have said vaccine requirements will not force workers to leave their company, while also saying that workers who fail to comply will be terminated. Staff were confused by the change in attitude, said Bogart and Yoder, an American pilot in Charlotte.

A Southwest spokesman said the company was aware of the protests.

“Southwest recognizes various positions regarding the COVID-19 vaccine and we have always supported and will continue to support the right of our employees to speak up by having open lines of communication to share issues and concerns” said spokesman Chris Mainz in a statement.

“We don’t want an employee to lose their job because of a vaccination problem. We intend to work with our employees as best we can. To do this, however, we need our employees to either let us know whether they are vaccinated or to make an accommodation request. “

The White House has extended the vaccination deadline for federal contractor employees to January 4, 2022. That means Southwest employees can receive a single-dose COVID-19 vaccine, the second dose of a two-dose series of vaccines, or request an adjustment until then to meet federal government mandates.

Bogart and Yoder have both appeared on podcasts and YouTube shows to discuss the vaccine mandates, and each said they had only brief conversations with their supervisors about their involvement.

The COVID-19 vaccination mandate has put airlines in a difficult position by pitting vaccination advocates against opponents and employees against employees. Chicago-based United Airlines has put in place a vaccination mandate before federal regulations, while Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines has not mandated vaccinations despite being a federal contractor too. Delta CEO Ed Bastian said more than 90% of employees have been vaccinated.

But more vaccine requirements could come as the White House and OSHA push forward mandates for all companies with 100 or more employees.

According to a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation published on October 28, about a quarter of all workers in the United States say their employers need vaccines. About 1% of adult workers said they had given up their jobs because of vaccination mandates, which corresponds to about 5% of unvaccinated workers, the survey found.

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