Amtrak Temporarily Suspends Worker Vaccine Mandate

Dillon BurroughsDecember 14, 2021

Amtrak announced on Tuesday that it is temporarily suspending its COVID-19 vaccine mandate for workers and no longer plans to end some services in January as previously expected.

An email sent to employees revealed “fewer than 500 active Amtrak employees” were not yet in compliance with the company’s mandate set for January 4, 2022, despite an overall vaccination or accommodation rate of more than 95% among its 17,000 employees.

🚨 Amtrak announces the company’s vaccine policy is being temporarily suspended — and the change means the company no longer expects to reduce service due to worker shortage in January 2022 pic.twitter.com/73zPNNKjXQ

— Jacqui Heinrich (@JacquiHeinrich) December 14, 2021

“Recently a federal district court decision halted the enforcement of the Executive Order for federal contractors. This caused the company to reevaluate our policy and to address the uncertainty about the federal requirements that apply to Amtrak,” the email stated.

The company has now reverted its vaccine mandate policy back to what it announced on August 11 with testing as an alternative for those who choose not to be vaccinated.

Those without vaccination or an approved accommodation will be subject to weekly COVID-19 tests.

“After reviewing our system service plans in light of these changes, we do not anticipate having system-wide service impacts in January,” the Amtrak email added.

“Our customers trust Amtrak’s commitment to safety and are responding positively to the investments and improvements we are making,” Amtrak CEO Bill Flynn said in a statement on Monday.

“We will continue to prioritize offering a modern, safe and reliable customer experience and preparing for what should be a monumental fiscal year 2022.”

Last week, The Daily Wire previously reported regarding Amtrak’s previous plan to cut back on services:

Amtrak is getting ready to cut back on its services due in part to the enforcement of its vaccine mandate early next year.

Amtrak’s vaccine mandate is scheduled to be implemented January 4, and a spokesman for the company reportedly said that its rule will stay even if the federal vaccine mandate attempted by the Biden Administration is still barred by the courts.

Amtrak President Stephen Gardner discussed the upcoming setbacks in written testimony for a hearing before the House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials on Thursday.

Gardner noted that 94% of the workers are fully vaccinated, and 96% have gotten at least one dose, but added that those “numbers do not include employees who are on leave of absence or have an approved accommodation.”

“As part of addressing the challenges presented by COVID-19, Amtrak must comply with the federal mandate effective January 4, 2022 that employees of government contractors be fully vaccinated,” he noted.

Gardner added that “because many engineers, conductors and on-board service employees retired or left Amtrak during the pandemic, and we temporarily halted hiring due to funding uncertainty and covid-related distancing requirements that inhibited training, we anticipate that we will not initially have enough employees to operate all the trains we are currently operating when the federal mandate takes effect. … This will likely necessitate temporary frequency reductions, primarily for our long-distance services.”

He also explained how this fallout will mostly be experienced “across our long-distance services because of the relatively small crew bases at intermediate points. … At some of these crew bases across our network, we have a relatively high percentage of unvaccinated employees.”

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