Global investment firm Vanguard will pay its US workers $1,000 to get vaccinated against Covid-19.
Employees will have to prove they gained their injections by October and will still qualify if they were inoculated before the company made its offer.
A spokesperson for the firm said vaccines were the best way of stopping the spread of Covid and “As such, we are offering a vaccine incentive for crew [staff] who provide Covid-19 vaccination proof.
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“The incentive recognises crew who have taken the time to protect themselves, each other, and our communities by being vaccinated.”
The US is in the midst of a surge in coronavirus cases, mostly of the Delta variant, with 112,200 new daily cases on 4 August, rising from about 8,000 in late June. The rise in cases has seen the reimposition of guidance from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention that people should wear masks indoors.
Vanguard has about 16,500 US workers but also has offices in London, elsewhere in Europe and in Asia, Canada and Australia.
The firm’s approach contrasts with that of another US finance company, Blackrock, which has barred unvaccinated employees from entering its US offices since July. Microsoft and Google in the US are also asking all staff to get vaccinated.
Walmart and Uber have asked management, but not frontline staff, to get the vaccine while Amazon and Apple have no specific policy in place.
Vaccination rates have slowed in parts of the US and some unions have taken exception to attempts by some firms to impose vaccination policies. For example, this week the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union criticised Tyson Foods, one of the US’s largest meat processors, for imposing a mandate when vaccines still have only emergency approval from the US Food and Drug Administration.
President Marc Perrone said the union would be meeting with the company over the next weeks to “ensure that the rights of these workers are protected, and this policy is fairly implemented”.
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“You can’t just say, ‘Accept the mandate or hit the door’,” Perrone told the New York Times earlier this week.
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