T-Mobile’s corporate employees need to get the jab if they want to keep their jobs. The company announced in a memo Friday to its corporate staff that it would begin firing the unvaccinated on April 2. The wireless giant said it would put employees on leave if they don’t at least have the first shot by Feb. 21.
T-Mobile was one of several companies last year to make vaccinates a requirement for employment. Now, they’re giving the mandate teeth. Though it will mostly only impact office workers at the company’s headquarters in Washington, Bloomberg reported. T-Mobile isn’t making most of its in-store retail workers or technicians get the shots, the report said. Customer service reps will need to show proof that they got the first shot by Feb. 21, but the company won’t put them on unpaid leave if they don’t. Anyone with a religious or medical exemption can also opt out of the shots.
“While we hope every affected employee will be vaccinated and return to their workplace, we understand that for some, this means you must make a deeply personal decision,” Deeanne King, T-Mobile’s chief HR officer, said in the memo.
T-Mobile said it is looking out for employees and wants to protect them from the coronavirus. The company will fire anyone unwilling to help them in that effort.
“T-Mobile’s badge-controlled offices continue to be accessible only to those who are vaccinated against COVID-19, and we have shared with employees that we are requiring office workers to be fully vaccinated by April 2nd,” a T-Mobile spokesperson told Engadget.
T-Mobile isn’t the only company pushing unvaccinated employees out the door. Nike released its unvaccinated workers last month, reports said. But it’s unclear how many the athletic company fired in the purge.
‘Freedom Convoy’ Reaches Canadian Capital to Protest Vaccines
A brigade of truckers traveled nearly 3,000 miles from Vancouver, Canada, to Ottawa to protest against that country’s vaccine mandate. Thousands of truckers in the so-called “Freedom Convoy” made the trek to demand the nation’s leaders rescind the order. Thousands more joined them in planned protests at the country’s capital this weekend.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ordered earlier this month that truckers who cross the American-Canadian border be vaccinated. Those who aren’t must quarantine and test negative for COVID when they re-enter Canada.
“We want to be free, we want to have our choice again, and we want hope — and the government has taken that away,” said Harold Jonker, a trucker who took part in the Freedom Convoy.
The protest has caught the attention of conservative groups and major Republican figures in the United States like former president Donald Trump. Elon Musk tweeted that “Canadian trucker rule” in response to the protest. People around the world have donated millions of dollars on GoFundMe to help pay for the group’s protests.
But members of the Freedom Convoy say this isn’t about politics. It’s about jobs. And they plan to continue their protests until they get their way.
“The intent is actually to stay until all these mandates are dropped,” Jonker told the BBC. “… We are staying here until we can go back to work.”