WASHINGTON, Dec 14 (Reuters) – U.S. passenger railroad Amtrak said on Tuesday it will temporarily suspend a vaccine mandate for employees and now no longer expects to be forced to cut some service in January.
In a memo seen by Reuters, Amtrak Chief Executive Bill Flynn said the railroad would allow employees who were not vaccinated to get tested.
Flynn said 95.7% of Amtrak’s 17,000 employees are either fully vaccinated or have an accommodation — and including employees with one dose 97.3% of employees are in compliance.
“This caused the company to reevaluate our policy and to address the uncertainty about the federal requirements that apply to Amtrak,” the memo said.
Amtrak added that employees “required to submit testing and fail to do so will be placed on an unpaid leave of absence initially.”
Last week, an Amtrak official disclosed the planned service cuts during a House committee hearing.
Republican Representative Sam Graves had criticized the cuts and said Tuesday that the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate “would have delivered less service for the taxpayers footing the bill.”
Amtrak is currently working to add up to 3,500 new employees by late 2022.
Congress approved $66 billion for rail as part of a massive infrastructure bill, with Amtrak receiving $22 billion.
Amtrak saw demand fall off substantially during COVID-19 and is now seeing about 70% of pre-pandemic volumes.
