Two contractors at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio were expected to send home dozens of union employees this week with plans to fire them for refusing to be vaccinated against COVID-19, a local United Steelworkers president at the site said in a press release.
Potentially, 50 United Steelworkers (USW) Local 1-689 members will be sent home from work by Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth and Mid-America Conversion Services “with the expectation to be released from employment,” the local president Herman Potter announced in Tuesday’s release.
The 50 employees cited in the press release is less than the 100 Potter had suggested Nov. 12. The companies’ actions come despite the union’s request that the vaccine orders be pushed back until Jan. 4 for the contract workers at the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant complex in Pike County, Ohio, according to the USW official.
Mid-America is going with a Dec. 8 deadline for its contractor and subcontractor employees to be fully vaccinated, according to a document posted on the website for the Atkins-led team in charge of depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) conversion plants at the DOE sites near Paducah, Ky., and Piketon, Ohio.
“The USW had requested that the contractors follow the task force guidelines and push back the implementation of the vaccine mandate to January 4, 2022,” according to the statement from the union local, apparently alluding to the latest guidance, issued Nov. 10, from the Safer Federal Workforce Task Force on COVID-19 Workplace Safety. The latest task force update gives contractors until Jan. 18 to be “fully vaccinated,” which means receiving the final shot by Jan. 4, 2022.
Pushing the deadline back to early January would provide “more time to properly educate the members on the various vaccines” or alternatively give them more time to gather documents supporting potential medical or religious exemptions, according to the USW release.
Affected workers were to be sent home starting Wednesday.
A Fluor-BWXT spokesperson said Wednesday morning the company hopes to issue a statement this week on the vaccination situation. A spokesperson for Atkins declined comment on Mid-America status.
