• Employees that refuse to get vaccinated by January 4, 2022, will be placed on an unpaid leave of absence for up to 60 calendar days. Employees on this leave will not be permitted to use any of their paid time off benefits during this period. The Company will allow employees on this leave to continue their Health and Welfare benefits (Medical, dental, vision, and life insurance) provided employees continue to pay their active employee premiums through direct bill.

In October 2021 Lumen notified CWA of their intent to mandate the COVID-19 vaccination for the unionized workforce.  Their decision was based on Executive Order 14042 Ensuring  Adequate  COVID Safety Protocols  for Federal  Contractors. CWA demanded to bargain over the effects of this policy. 

We met with the Company November 17, 2021, to continue Effects Bargaining over the mandatory COVID-19 Vaccine mandate. We rejected a series of Company proposals that wouldn’t treat each employee’s circumstance fairly and equally. Bargaining is recessed for the day and we will be working with the Company to secure future dates to get back to the table. The Company confirmed today that they will extend the date to be fully vaccinated from December 8, 2021 to January 18, 2022. To be fully vaccinated employees must have their 2nd shot by January 4, 2022. Look for communications on that.

We met with the Company today in regards to  the  Mandatory COVID-19  Vaccine mandate. The Company made some counter proposals and CWA is reviewing these proposals. The Company rejected the proposals that CWA presented at last week’s bargaining session. They will extend the date to be fully vaccinated from December 8,

2021 to January 4, 2022 as you may have seen from communications they have been putting out to employees. They are waiting for the official rule from the government to confirm the date change. 

We met with the Company today and put forward several proposals in regards to the mandatory COVID-19 Vaccine mandate. As of today, we have had multiple conversations and questions around treatment of employees with medical and religious exemptions, extending the deadline for getting

vaccinated, the Company’s tracking of vaccination status and who has access to that information, paid time off for employees suffering from side effects of getting the vaccine and treatment for those employees who choose not to get

the vaccine for their reasons and convictions.

We held our first effects bargaining session with the Company for members of all bargaining units at Lumen on November 2, 2021, regarding the recently announced COVID Vaccine mandate. We presented a request for information and had a lot of questions to pose to the Company in our meeting today. The Company did explain the process to apply for religious or medical exemptions. They stated they are complying with the EEOC guidelines for religious exemptions.