United put customer facing employees with approved religious vaccine exemptions on unpaid leave. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit let a lawsuit by 1,000 workers proceed as a class action. The airline is asking the Supreme Court to intervene.
What should they have done? Not letting unvaccinated people work in an airport at least seems to be the right call.
Seems weird to defend giant corporations as they actively punish workers.
I meant “what should they have done” as a literal question more than as rhetorically, because the answer doesn’t seem that obvious. Is it really the right choice to give antivaxxers fully paid leave for the duration of the pandemic, and then let them back, still unvaccinated, when the government says it’s over even though it isn’t really over? Probably there is a better way it could have been handled than bullshitting that unpaid leave counts as an accommodation, but giving a free ride to everyone who says they can’t take a vaccine for religious reasons seems like a really bad way for incentives to be set up.
Good, screw United.
