ANCHORAGE — The Alaska Railroad has rescinded its mandate for employees to receive the COVID-19 vaccination following a Tuesday vote by the state-owned railroad’s board of directors.
The Anchorage Daily News reports the board voted unanimously to rescind the mandate, announced Friday in an email from CEO Bill O’Leary to employees [see “Alaska Railroad to require vaccinations,” Trains News Wire, Oct. 26, 2021].
A railroad spokesman said 52.6% of the Alaska’s 692 employees are currently vaccinated. The spokesman, Tim Sullivan, said the decision not to comply with the vaccination requirement mandated by a federal executive order could cost the railroad millions of dollars in federal grants and contracts. The railroad is currently involved in an effort to land a $100 million federal grant to build a new 18-mile spur to serve a liquefied natural gas facility [see “Alaska railroad part of effort seeking $100 million in federal funds …,” Trains News Wire, Oct. 26, 2021]. The railroad also leases space from the U.S. Forest Service in a historic Anchorage freight shed.
Sullivan said the board’s decision reflected pending legal challenges to the federal mandate, citing a lawsuit filed by Arizona’s attorney general. The railroad will wait to see what happens in court and could revisit the decision later, he said.
The newspaper quoted board chair John Shivley as saying the railroad has “been put in a very difficult position by the federal government. There’s not a single board member that likes this at all.”
Can someone please explain to me why covid-19 is the hill so many have chosen to die on. A virus doesn’t care about your politics.
Because some people would rather die than to give up their liberty. “At what point should individual rights yield to the public interest?” 1 out of 500 deaths? 1 out of 10? Personal choice is simply that. You offer it (vaccine), make it available, if they choose to not to, it is their choice and no other. That means the consequences are theirs and no other. People choose to smoke. Smoking causes cancer. But it is their right to smoke. That makes it their consequence when they die. It is dangerous to ride a motorcycle w/o a helmet. An accident w/o one will most likely kill you. Yet, most riders prefer to *not* to have a mandatory helmet law, even if they wear one everyday. The choices and risk they take are theirs and theirs alone. The consequences of those choices are theirs and theirs alone.
Actually they’ll be better off without the dirty government money. More freedom.
The Alaskan Railroad was built by the federal government and is owned and operated by the state government. No federal money is no expansion and less business for the railroad.
What could possibly go wrong they say.
In other words they need to run a railroad. You have to give them credit for making a decisive vote in the face of our unusual political situation.
Too bad the BoD doesn’t like it, it’s perfectly legal.
Gerald: The mandates are perfectly legal, as you state, but opinion is divided on wisdom and ethics.
I have had extensive discussions on this issue, including with people affected. (My wife and I are both retired so we’re not subject to the mandate.) There are many reasons why people resist the vaccine. These reasons range from the wacked-out silly to the somewhat plausible. Gerald, you and I disagree with the resisters – but the people with an opinion different from yours or mine have a right to be heard. These people aren’t going away because you and I disagree with them.
My own religion (Roman Catholic) is pro vaccine. As are my wife and I in our personal, secular beliefs. We have freedom of religion in USA and some people belong to churches very different from my own, or have different political or philosophical views than I do.
Slavery was perfectly legal till 1965.