Thread regarding Thomson Reuters layoffs

I decided to get the vax before the new mandate because I felt that, for me, the benefits outweighed the risks. I already made that personal choice. Like most on this board, I'm also looking for a new opportunity. I've already run into this question during an initial interview. Basically, no vaccination, no job. This isn't something I want to have to share with an employer, but the new federal requirement provides a legal excuse to get rid of people without severance.

I already hide my personal beliefs at work now. I don't want to give anyone an excuse. I'd like to make my escape to bigger and better things on my own terms.

There are clear Herman Cain Award winners on the current Hub thread too! It's hard to believe that in a company of educated professionals there people that can be brainwashed by conspiracy theories and lies. People mentioned Ivermectin and someone even wrote "plandemic". FFS. And it's very apparent that many of the anti-vaxxers on the thread just don't understand how a vaccine works. The appear to have no concept of living in a civilized society where people care about other people and society as a whole, or they just flat out don't care. As someone said in an earlier comment, the human race is doomed.

Oh, and before the tin foil hat wearers accuse me of being brainwashed by the "mainstream media", I don't consume any of that. I read my news and read it carefully.

I see some pending Herman Cain Award winners here, and I’ll be glad not to be working alongside them and their social media “science” and “I need mah freedom!”

700,000+ Americans dead, but if they aren’t personally affected, then it doesn’t exist and the rest of us are scared sheep. The latest trend? Blaming the vaccinated for shedding and infecting the unvaxxed (total unscientific BS) and also calling themselves “Purebloods.” Good job, overseas troll farms.

This is a spicy thread/topic. I wonder how many will put their paychecks where their mouths are.

We already have a significant amount of people leaving. Not just us, but everywhere. We have the Great Resignation. Plus the Great Retirement. Ohh and don’t forget the hundred of thousands of people who have died to this year because of the pandemic.

Stock price is up so that means everything is going to be great! /s

Anyways it’s going to suck for everyone the next 6 months for those that stay.

I’ve been vaccinated twice and got the booster shot last week and I do not regret it at all. However I do not believe that people should be coerced into taking the vaccine.

Jeewhiz right on! Nice to see that there are others out there who think along the same lines. All about the bottom line with this company and saving $$$.

@2lvp+1douTwO2 Tell me you're one of those "Trust the science" people who don't understand science, without telling me

My favorite response yet includes this: "I have an amazing immune system."

Really?

Tell me you don't know how viruses work without telling me you don't know how viruses work.

For whoever said this isn't a political issue? You're right, it's public health. It should have never been politicized. But, here we are. This isn't about medical rights. It's about public health in a global pandemic. But go off, spouting misinformation you learned on social media. If you were truly interested in facts, you would be willing to accept the expertise of virologists and epidemiologists who have spent years in education and practice in their respective fields. Oh heck no! Instead, you'll listen to people who got their medical degrees from Facebook University. No one is gonna tell YOU what to do, da---t! After all, what about your freedoms? Why should YOU have to get a vaccine? You'll just conveniently ignore that vaccine mandates have been in place for a heck of a long time in the US, and many of us were required to show proof of vaccination to go to school. My grandparents gladly complied with blackout orders during WWII, as did all their neighbors because they wanted to do what they could to help their fellow Americans in wartime. I can only imagine all the whiny people crying "but MY freedoms" if such a thing were to take place today. Good grief, what a narcissistic culture.

There so much that’s Incorrect with what @2zlp+1douTwO2 wrote that it makes my head hurt. The human race is doomed.

They are doing the survey to see how many people won’t get vaccinated and end up getting terminated. That would be for cause so no severance. If certain regions or groups are heavily impacted than they know where they need to hire to backfill and how much. It’s that simple

“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” - Benjamin Franklin

This mandate is absolutely ridiculous! What happened to a person's ability to make personal/private health decisions? If you have had the vax, why are you so afraid of the un-vaxed? Shouldn't you be protected! Not to mention the narrative is it is the vax helps stop the spread of covid. However, on the cdc website it states the vax does not prevent you from getting or spreading covid... so tell me how this is in anyway is effective. I'll take my chances with natural immunity, and not live in fear!

Honestly I should be able to decide when and how I choose to get this vaccine or ANY vaccine for that matter. I dont want to be controlled. Hit the labor market absolutely. This is a blessing in disguise. Several jobs out there less stress more money no vaccine required. The fact that they are making remote work from home employees get this is ridiculous. Who am I going to infect...my 4 walls. I have an amazing immune system. If you are vaccinated you are protected. Anyone not vaccinated shouldn't scare you. Perhaps the 7000 who've died since the vax should. Colin Powell fully vaccinated died from Covid. There is a 99.98% chance of survival with Covid. You give them an inch they will take a mile. Careful what you wish for.

@2lau+1douTwO2 - in response to severance, I hope they don’t get it. They are voluntarily not meeting the requirement for employment. They don’t deserve it; this is a federal law and the company is following it. If you feel you deserve severance for that, then you’re super entitled and it’s embarrassing.

I was told that if an exemption is denied and we are fired after the 30 days unpaid leave that we don't get severance or unemployment. Is that true? Their documentation does state that we won't get our bonus since we won't be employed at that time.

Why 30 days unpaid leave? Do we still have medical converge during that time?

So, are they going to see how many are not getting it as indicated in the survey due at the end of the month? That way they won't have to do layoffs and pay severance?

Censoring the Hub posts is a new low. So much for “trusted news”… we can’t even have open dialog within the company.
How utterly gross.

Wow! They deleted the responses to Mary Alice's post that they didn't like. There wasn't even anything that critical. Glad we have honest and open communication.

Looks like the HCA nominee cannot spell. But that won’t matter soon enough. Again, congratulations on your nomination. It’s so exciting to witness firsthand.

@1xtv+1douTwO2
The things you're saying aren't true. The vaccines have been thoroughly tested and found to be safe and effective. Vaccines have never had side effects that did not show up in the first couple months. The immune response from previous infections is not reliable: https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/10/prior-infection-vs-vaccination-why-everyone-should-get-a-covid-19-shot/

If employees don't want to get vaccinated, they have the freedom to leave and find a small company to work for. It involves a federal mandate for large companies. TR is just following rules. Vaccines are required to go to school and many overseas locations. This isn't anything new.

Are they doing this just to get more people to leave on their own and then they don’t have to pay severance.

My personal choice was to get the vax. But I don't want to return to the office. It's easier to search for and interview for new jobs from home.

On the contrary @1ctd+1douTwO2. I had and recovered from Covid. There is NO statistical evidence that vaccination is superior to naturally acquired immunity, nor is there any evidence to suggest that the benefit of vaccinating those who’ve already had it provides any benefit to the individual or the community. Why would I now subject myself to an experimental vaccine (“it’s safe!!!” Yada yada) with unknown long term health consequences?
I’m anything but a maniacal cultist. I’d suggest that moniker more aptly applies to someone who is so willing to blindly follow direction without questioning the common sense merit of mass vaccinations for a disease that is generally mild outside of those with specific comorbidities, and to which large swaths of the population are already immune through previous infection.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that as long as I have colleagues who think they are immune from COVID-19 because they imagine they aren't overweight enough to catch it or spread it, I am staying out of the office. It's insane that people still have these fantasies about their chances against the disease when we have over 700,000 dead in the United States alone. They weren't all obese, and they weren't all elderly.
I am not going back into an office until we are disabused of these maniacal cultists -- and that is exactly what they are.

@tdu+1douTwO2 How about a little personal accountability? No, obesity isn’t contagious, but it is decidedly the single most important and widespread factor in negative outcomes aside from age. And something that SHOULD be within individuals’ control (and don’t even bother with the socioeconomic factors argument, which is not relevant to the vast majority of TR employees).
Age, of course, is outside of one’s control. What percentage of TR employees are 65+? Too small of a number to even be relevant.

If your argument is that private companies should do the bidding of an authoritarian government… well then you do indeed deserve the dystopian nightmare that is all of our future.

@jho+1douTwO2 it's a vaccine OR TESTING mandate. 700,000 Americans are dead from COVID. Smokers pay more for health insurance in TR's plans. Obesity is not a communicable disease. Stop the false issue framing.

As a (former) lifelong liberal, who is (GASP) unvaccinated, I find the idea of vaccine mandates abhorrent. This isn’t a political issue, it’s a personal medical rights issue based on stats. Very few people are at any real risk from Covid. Those who are, are largely old and/or obese. Fear monger all you like, those are the facts.
When is TR going to mandate that those in the obese BMIs lose a few pounds? Or that smokers quit? Or that we all get off our butts once in awhile? All of those would have more measurable impact than a vaccine mandate.

I have no problem with this. Don't like it? Exercise your freedom of choice and hit the labor market. Interesting how the bedrock conservative value of private property and ownership is now supposed to give way to "Mah freedum."

No testing alternative?

Seriously folks. We have much to complain about but not this. How about we catch up with the rest of the world. We all should have been vaccinated long before now.