Southwest Airlines is clamping down on anti-vax shenanigans, offering an enticing perk to employees who are either fully vaccinated or will be by November 15th: they will receive 16 hours of extra pay (or "13 trip segments" for pilots and flight attendants).
On the flip side, employees who are not fully vaccinated by November 16th will lose "quarantine pay protections," according to CNBC, which gives employees who caught Covid-19 on the job up to 10 days off (above and beyond their normal sick day allowance). Vaccinated employees who catch Covid on the job will continue to receive these extra sick days.
Southwest isn't the first airline to offer incentives to employees who get vaccinated — or to make it tougher on those who don't.
From CNBC:
The airline's new policies come months after carriers including Delta Air Lines, American Airlines and United Airlines offered incentives like extra pay to encourage staff to get vaccinated. …
Carriers have taken varying approaches to get staff vaccinated. United last month said it will require its roughly 67,000-person U.S. workforce to be vaccinated this fall and said it will put staff who receive religious exemptions on temporary unpaid leave. On Thursday, Kate Gebo, United's executive vice president of human resources, told staff that 90% of United's U.S. employees have been vaccinated.
Delta, for its part, plans to charge unvaccinated employees $200 more a month for company health insurance starting in November.
American and Alaska Airlines earlier this month announced they were ending pay protections for unvaccinated workers.
