DALLAS (LifeSiteNews) — Telecommunications giant AT&T announced Wednesday that it would require all employees who are part of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) union to receive the COVID jab by February 1, building on a previous policy that affected most managerial employees.
The previous policy, announced last August, maintained that most managerial employees needed to get the jab by October 11. The new policy requires all employees represented by CWA to get the jab by February 1, 2022. Jim Greer, a representative of AT&T, told LifeSiteNews via email that AT&T’s new policy applies to CWA-represented employees working in company locations, at client or customer events or sites, and even to those temporarily working at home. He added that the policy was implemented after “discussions with our union partners.”
Speaking to The Hill, a CWA official said that negotiations between the union and the telecommunications giant came to an “impasse” over the policy. In spite of the impasse, CWA did manage to have the policy modified. The modifications include moving the proposed January 1 deadline proposed to February 1, and a 60-day unpaid reconciliation period designed to change employees’ minds. Further, any employee fired for violating the policy would be deemed “rehireable” by AT&T. The company’s policy differs from the federal mandate insofar as it does not allow for a weekly testing option.
CWA is the largest union at AT&T, representing about 90,000 employees out of AT&T’s 230,000 employees as of the end of January, making it one of the largest companies to mandate the jab.
The mandate comes in the wake of a new executive order in New York designed to alleviate a potential shortage of tens of thousands of health care workers. Numerous nurses, doctors, and other medical professionals have so far refused to comply with a jab mandate that went into effect Tuesday. The order was signed late Monday night.