Automotive employers including Ford Motor Co. and Mercedes-Benz said last week they are mandating COVID-19 vaccinations for salaried personnel as the industry adapts to upcoming federal rules.
But still uncertain is what added pressure big manufacturers might put on their factory work forces as the industry tries to break free of nearly two years of pandemic disruption.
Ford said last week that it will require “most” of its U.S. salaried employees to be fully vaccinated by Dec. 8. That is in line with an executive order President Joe Biden signed this year that requires federal contractors to have their employees be immunized by that date in order to continue receiving contracts from the government.
A Ford spokeswoman said in a statement that “the health and safety of our work force remains our top priority, and we have been very encouraged by the support of our employees to comply with our protocols, including the more than 84 percent of U.S. salaried employees who are already vaccinated.”
Likewise, Mercedes-Benz USA said it will require its employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by Jan. 4. That’s the same day the federal government will begin requiring businesses with 100 or more employees to mandate vaccinations for their work forces.
The Biden administration said last week that workers at those companies who do not get vaccinated will be required to be tested at least weekly. Businesses that do not comply with the requirements, issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration last week, may be subject to fines.
In a statement to Automotive News, Mercedes-Benz said about two-thirds of its work force nationwide is vaccinated. But Reuters reported that less than half of the workers at Mercedes’ U.S. import processing centers are immunized, citing a source familiar with the matter.
“We expect that the vast majority of our employees will provide proof of vaccination before the deadline,” the company said.
However, the Ford and Mercedes mandates did not apply to workers at the companies’ U.S. assembly plants. A spokesperson for Daimler told Automotive News that the Mercedes-Benz U.S. International factory in Vance, Ala., does not have a mandate in place “at this point in time.”
The UAW, which represents Detroit 3 factory workers, said in a statement last week that it “continues to strongly encourage all members to get vaccinated but understands that in some cases health-related and religious-related issues do not make that possible. We will review our over 700 employer contracts and see how this rule impacts the current protocols in place at different worksites as well as any impacts on terms of our existing contracts.”
General Motors said in a statement to Automotive News last week that “we continue to strongly encourage our employees to get vaccinated given the broad availability of safe and highly efficacious vaccines, which data consistently show is the best way to protect yourself and those around you. We will continue to review our options and will share with our employees first any changes to our current protocols.”
But mandatory shots will soon be required for workers at Detroit 3 factories in Canada. Workers at Stellantis and GM plants there are expected to be immunized by mid-December, and Ford Canada’s mandate is expected to take effect in January.
“Vaccines and vaccine mandates have proven to be effective, and we feel this is the responsible action to take at this time to protect our employees and their families as well as those visiting our facilities,” Stellantis said in an email to sibling publication Automotive News Canada.
But on the U.S. side of the border, Stellantis said last week that “as part of our protocol, all U.S. employees have been asked to self-certify their vaccination status since spring. We are continuing to monitor the situation and, in partnership with the UAW, evaluating additional actions to take in the best interest of employee health and safety.”
Jerry Dias, president of the Canadian autoworkers union Unifor, said the union is in favor of vaccination policies but takes issue with longtime members losing their jobs for choosing not to be vaccinated, Automotive News Canada reported.
Meanwhile, major suppliers in the U.S. said last week they were waiting to review the OSHA rules. A spokesman for Robert Bosch, which employs more than 17,000 people in the U.S., said it will “determine appropriate actions” for the supplier’s U.S. locations after the rules are issued and it has reviewed them.
Supplier ZF Friedrichshafen said it does not require vaccinations for its employees but has promoted the vaccines among its work force. Likewise, Continental AG said it does not have a mandate in place but instead has a campaign to “encourage employees to be vaccinated” through on-site vaccination clinics, informational posters and meetings with physicians who can answer questions, spokeswoman Kathryn Blackwell said in an email.
Writing before the OSHA requirements were released, Blackwell said the company did not plan to mandate vaccinations unless it was required to do so under the federal rule. Conti did not anticipate having to do so because workers who are unvaccinated will instead be required to be tested regularly.
According to Blackwell, 68 percent of employees in its U.S. automotive unit say they are vaccinated, though the company believes that figure to be higher since workers are not required to report their vaccine status.
Speaking on an Automotive News podcast on Oct. 13, Bill Kozyra, the newly retired CEO of TI Fluid Systems, said that a vaccination mandate would take effect there on Nov. 1.
“We believe it’s the right thing to do,” he said. “We do have a certain percentage of employees, a low percentage, that have decided they do not care to get vaccinated, and for a variety of reasons. We would be having to part ways with those employees, which is very unfortunate and was not intended.”
A spokesman for TI, contacted last week after the Nov. 1 deadline, declined to discuss the results of the mandate.
Cox Automotive, meanwhile, said roughly 99 percent of its employees who were required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by an Oct. 18 deadline either are fully vaccinated or received an exemption for religious or medical reasons. A spokesman for Cox declined to break out specific details about how many employees are fully vaccinated and how many were exempted from the requirement.
The October deadline did not apply to all employees, though a spokesman said the company last week extended the requirement to all remaining employees who were not covered by the first deadline to March 31.
Urvaksh Karkaria, Hannah Lutz, Michael Martinez and Lindsay VanHulle; David Kennedy of Automotive News Canada; and Reuters contributed to this report.