Nike headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon.
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- Nike will reportedly fire a group of unvaccinated corporate workers this weekend.
- According to Oregon Live, these workers were notified via email this week.
- Nike did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
Nike will reportedly fire some of its unvaccinated corporate workers in the next few days.
According to local news site Oregon Live, Nike – one of the largest employers in the area – sent an email to impacted workers this week informing them that they will be fired on Saturday for failing to get vaccinated in time.
“You failed to complete the verification process and our records show that you do not have an approved (exemption). As a result, you are not in compliance with the Policy and your employment is scheduled to be terminated on Saturday, January 15, 2022,” the sports giant wrote in an email to staff, according to Oregon Live.
Nike did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
Two impacted employees told Oregon Life that some workers had refused to be vaccinated because they objected to corporate mandates. Others did so for religious reasons, they said.
Nike introduced its vaccine mandate in October, requiring all corporate workers to be fully vaccinated in preparation for its office reopenings in January. Last month, it delayed the reopening of its corporate offices because of the rise in COVID-19 cases in the US.
“The Omicron variant is indeed highly contagious, with more data and time needed to determine what impact Omicron will have on our public health systems,” Monique Matheson, Nike’s chief human resources officer, wrote in an email to employees at the time. “Experts are predicting case levels to surge in the coming weeks, which coincides with our planned return to our workplaces.”
Nike is among a group of private companies that are independently choosing to introduce vaccine mandates for workers. Other companies with more than 100 employees may be required to do so in the future if the Biden administration’s vaccine-or-test mandate goes into effect.
Biden’s mandate is on hold and being reviewed by the Supreme Court, although some aspects of it went into effect on Monday.
According to Oregon Live, Columbia Sportswear, which is headquartered in Oregon, also plans to fire unvaccinated corporate employees next month. The company did not disclose how many people would lose their jobs but suggested that it was a small number, Oregon Live wrote.
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