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Comment by thepasswordis | Hacker News Reader

There is currently a major outage at a major part of the infrastructure of our nation, and nobody believes anybody about why.

The airline is saying it's something to do with weather, but somehow they're the only airline effected.

Everybody online seems to the think it's some sort of labor strike, but the union denies this and nobody can find anywhere where people are planning this.

And yet thousands of people are stuck in airports all over the country right now.

It just seems like something is going on, and that everybody is lying about it. Can't say I've ever really seen anything like this, and it genuinely freaks me out.

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If it's a strike then it 9 times out of 10 means the airline will have to payout for delayed and cancelled flights. I would imagine they are trying to spin this every which way possible to eliminate the inevitable bill that will need to be paid. Financials are probably out of whack too since covid so this situation could really cripple/break them.

The most likely explanation is here [1]. Pilots (and apparently some air traffic controllers) are doing a sickout to protest vaccine mandates, presumably to make the powers that be understand just how difficult they can make things for the country if they proceed with intended mass firings. But the sickout is technically illegal, so nobody will acknowledge it. That is why you won't see a clear explanation of this incident - probably ever. You've never seen anything like it because we have never been in a situation where a significant percentage of the population is being threatened with the loss of their livelihood unless they take something that many consider to be quite dangerous.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28824370

Edit: deleted link to tweet, comment below points out that it was from a suspect Twitter account.

The tweet you linked is an account that's linked to at least one disinformation farm.

Think about it for two seconds, if that really happened, there would be hundreds of witnesses, everybody would be talking about the flight number, there would be cell phone videos and corporate social media responses. None of those things exist, so either everybody on the plane, the airport, and all their friends and relatives are in on the conspiracy except this one bot account, or they're making shit up to stir up conservatives, which is what they've done all day every day since joining the site in January 2017.

I just looked at the account...you are correct, it does seem to be a very right-leaning account, so I deleted the link. The tweet seemed credible, but given the mass-downvoting in this thread, I'll err on the side of caution. Regardless, the tweet was an afterthought, not the main point of the comment.

Agree. Have family members in the pilot's union and in the air traffic control union.

The White House thinks they can force unilateral changes to the union contracts.

If the unions admitted to what was going on, the White House would have more legal authority to intervene more directly with the unions.

The parent comment above is being downvoted in favor of the top comment - which is a baseless pro-union comment.

It's so strange. Do people really prefer to push an agenda here rather than understand the nuance and truth of what is going on?

> The White House thinks they can force unilateral changes to the union contracts.

Well, yes. Contracts can't override Federal regulation. "Sign this contract exempting you from OHSA protections" won't (generally) fly, right?

What federal regulation gives the federal government the magical ability to mandate a medical procedure without consent?

OHSA, for employers subject to it. Medicare puts a lot of hospitals under their jurisdiction standards-wise, as well. Same for airlines. You'll note they've limited the mandate quite a bit to areas where there's wide court agreement the Feds have jurisdiction.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/07/us/politics/biden-vaccine...

> Experts said that legal challenges to the rule were all but assured, but precedent is most likely on Mr. Biden’s side. In the past 20 years, “every standard that has been challenged in court has been upheld by federal judges,” David Michaels, a professor at the George Washington University School of Public Health who was a head of OSHA during the Obama administration, said in an interview.

> OSHA also has the authority to quickly issue a rule, known as an emergency temporary standard, if it can show that workers are exposed to grave danger and that the rule is necessary to address it. The rule must also be feasible for employers to enforce.

At the state level, there's plenty of legal precedent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobson_v._Massachusetts

I don't find pilots refusing vaccines in significant numbers plausible in the slightest. Airline pilots have to comply with plenty of regulations and they're continuously trained to comply with safety regulations. Thus you don't become a pilot or don't remain one for long if you're allergic to safety regulations. If there's one occupation where expert recommendations are respected, it's aviation, and for good reasons -- the safety record of the industry speaks for itself.

Pilots in the US are an extremely conservative bunch. On my pilot group's FB page, the number of times I've read "Let's go Brandon!" in response to this supposed sickout are numerous. Every trip I hear the far-right Breitbart, Newsmax media narrative, and links from similar pseudo news blog sites are posted all the time. It's impossible to fly to SFO or LAX without a comment on homelessness, taxes, liberals, etc. Once, when I happened to be alone on my way to the hotel, a van driver in Trinidad asked my why the pilots are always talking about guns. Many US airline pilots are full-on anti-vax and claim that they'll be fired before being forced to get the vaccine.

> On my pilot group's FB page

Social media has optimized the process of finding groups of people that think just exactly like you do. The fact that you are listening to one specific echo chamber that feels this way does not tell you that the entire industry feels this way.

Consider the following counter-example: United Airlines also has a vaccine mandate, and got well over 99% compliance.

I’ve been an airline pilot for a long time and work for a large airline. In the US, pilots tend to be quite culturally conservative. It’s not my naive generalization. Yes, if the mandate happens most will get vaccinated, but there will be plenty of kicking and screams leading up to it.

I have a lot of friends in ATC, and it's similar there. It's anecdotal, but I talked to two of them things morning. One said the sickout is indeed real, while the other says it absolute isn't. They are literally on other sides of the country from each other, so idk if it's regional or just bullshit.

Literally heard “Let’s go Brandon” on the emergency frequency today in airspace too far from land for it to not be an airliner or other commercial craft (in contrast to the usual meowing).

> United Airlines also has a vaccine mandate, and got well over 99% compliance.

But how many employees left UA along the way?

Not sure why you are getting downvoted - if you purge the unvaccinated of course the percentage of the remaining employees who are vaccinated is going to go up.

Hell the president was bragging that was exactly how they got to those percentages over the weekend.

Well united airlines employees also once beat a man unconscious and dragged him out of an airplane to make room for more united employees. Maybe they hire a different sort of person there.

Not only that, but pilots must go through extensive medical examination in order to get their medical certificates, and for Airline Transport Pilots (ATP) they need to get them renewed every 6 or 12 months, depending on their age. They are entirely used to their medical status gating their employment!

Just make COVID-19 vaccination a requirement to pass your medical, and be done with all this hand-wringing.

> unless they take something that many consider to be quite dangerous.

Of course, zero pushback on this nonsense idea

Is it nonsense that the vaccines may be dangerous or that many consider the vaccines to be dangerous?

The former. But saying it this way is just like the GOP saying that "many people are concerned about election integrity" after they spent months lying to the public that it was a giant fraud.

It's such a nonsense idea that Finland and Sweden recently halted Moderna vaccination for under-30s males due to, in the views of their health authorities, the risks outweighing the benefits? https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/finland-pauses-use-mode...

> recently halted Moderna vaccination

In favor of Pfizer for that age group. Not in favor of "don't get the vaccine".

For a healthy person under 35, the odds of dying or having to be hospitalized shortly after receiving the vaccine are slightly higher than the odds of dying from COVID [1]. While the odds of any of these events, including dying from COVID, are low, there are certainly risks. We are faced with only bad choices in this pandemic - take a vaccine that has a high death/hospitalization rate relative to other vaccines, or roll the dice with COVID.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28829574

I'm sorry, but you just can't rely on VAERS data for a comparison like this. Literally anyone can submit a report to VAERS.

It’s the best data we have on this. The CDC officially denies any causal link between the vaccine and death [1]:

”A review of available clinical information, including death certificates, autopsy, and medical records, has not established a causal link to COVID-19 vaccines”

I can find 10 credible news reports of healthy individuals that died within 48 hours of receiving the vaccine in a minute of searching, so we know that the number 0 is complete nonsense.

Since the CDC numbers are comically wrong, we have to go to the next best source. The CDC itself is creating vaccine hesitancy by lying and misrepresenting statistics, which leads people to wonder what else they are lying about. Just the idea that they report adverse reaction rates based on number of doses administered, and not the number of vaccinated people, intentionally cuts the effective incident rate per person in half since two doses are required. That calls into question everything else they do. Nobody cares if it’s the first or second dose that kills or injures them. So the next best source is VAERS.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/ad...

Seems like it’s a “wildcat strike” where some employees organize and strike silently without the consent or direction of their union.

This kind of subverts union leadership though. How can the union leadership negotiate in good faith when there's no evidence that they are in a position to control or act on behalf of members?

Then again, I think it's technically illegal for members of the airline industry to actively strike. So maybe this is how it's done for plausible deniability sake.

The rumors are that it's due to the employee covid vaccine mandate.

I think that's the reason for the wildcat strike - the union won't abide by it so a group of pilots who don't want the vaccine are not working to make their point to management. It's all hearsay though.

They blame the weather or ATAC because then they do not have to issue refunds or pay for hotels

if its internal mismanagement then they do, as always follow the money.....

Southwest Airlines, passengers claim different causes for cancellations https://www.khou.com/article/news/national/southwest-airline...

> The nationwide cancellations came as the airline announced Monday that the company will now require employees to get the COVID-19 vaccinated by Dec. 8.

> Some customers said they were told the cancellations are a direct result of the vaccine mandate.

> “I asked them specifically 'is this about weather' – because if it’s about weather, they can deny compensation. They said 'no, it’s not about weather.' I said 'is this about maintenance?' They said 'no, it’s not about maintenance.' I said then 'what is the problem?'" passenger Ron Frank said. “They said this is all because of the vaccine mandate. They said we had a massive walkout. They also said that air traffic control had a massive walkout because of the vaccine mandate. But to couch 1,000 cancelations because of a thunderstorm somewhere is not believable.”

Why downvote a link to a local news outlet?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KHOU

Bullet, meet messenger.

I was, at first, very skeptical that so many people would walk out of the their jobs in a seemingly organized way, until I heard about the PTO angle of the story.

I work at a company with “unlimited PTO” (because business leaders learned that they pay less with “unlimited” than they do with accrued). But in previous jobs, it was very common to accrue PTO (up to 2 to 3 weeks worth). Most employees would find it hard to get coverage or approval for taking time off, so their PTO would accrue until it maxed out. Anytime I was going to leave a job where I had banked PTO, I would take my time off, and then resign when I came back because if you leave with accrued PTO, they would pay it out, taxed as supplemental income, which is at a higher rate.

3 weeks is a common max accrual for folks that have worked somewhere longer than a year or two, and looking at the calendar, we’re almost exactly 3 weeks from November.

These workers are getting (PTO) paid to strike, plus they’re not breaking any rules, or committing to resigning (or being terminated due to COVID policy), yet. Three weeks to take a much needed break, speak their values, and not miss a check? Now that sounds more like human behavior.

PTO usage generally needs to be approved, I can't imagine Southwest approving enough time off to shut down their operations.

If employees are using PTO by claiming they're sick (assuming there's no separate "sick days" they would normally use), Southwest might have recourse to deny paying PTO but whether or not they will is another question.

> They also said that air traffic control had a massive walkout because of the vaccine mandate

This doesn't make any sense at all. If a vaccine-mandate induced ATC walkout was the cause, all air carriers would be disrupted, not just Southwest.

I suspect this is someone pitching his own views about a situation he doesn't know the true cause of.

Not necessarily, because it depends which city your hub is in. Other airlines might have issues connecting to that city, but if their hub is in a city that doesn't have heavy anti-vax presence, then they are only slightly impacted.

Jacksonville FL, for example is a major SW hub, and was completely shut down. Similar issues exist in two other major SW hubs - Houston and Phoenix.

Also, not all other airlines have mandated vaccinations. ...and those that have aren't in heavily anti-vax cities.

There's also public statements from the JAX ATC saying that their absentee rate was normal and that most of the employees that were out that day were out because of mandatory time off for _getting the vaccine_.

It's a cluster of factors - the primary one being a lack of a bench of backup pilots - compounded by layoffs during COVID and now an inability to ramp up training to get pilots re-certified and re-hired: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO39nIcuPhQ

COVID vaccine shenanigans with a large chunk of the workforce near retirement age and just saying "fuck your mandate, I'll retire early" is just the cherry on top.

media blackout.

This is the most objective summary I have read on this situation. Bravo.

When a nation becomes dysfunctional enough, it’s no longer possible to tell the truth.

When a nation's media becomes convoluted enough, one might add

My /. sig for years:

  > It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.

That said, I don't think that the government is wrong here.

Well, the specific question that the government is answering is "should these people be employed if they make choices I disagree with". It is more borderline than it might appear at first blush.

I'm not sure I can think of a precedent for being so willing to eject that many people from the workforce in such a way.

> should these people be employed if they make choices I disagree with

This is a disingenuous way to frame it.

The current govt is anti-Nazi, but it's never tried to mandate that all employees found to be Nazis must be fired.

The reason vaccines are an issue of employment (only at larger employers, by the way) is that unvaccinated people endanger their coworkers.

People have a right to be unvaccinated, and the rest of us have a right to protect ourselves from them.

That isn't true. There are a lot of unvaccinated people - notably any that have recovered from COVID - who pose less danger to their coworkers than someone who has only been vaccinated.

This isn't based on risk assessment, this is based on ideology. There are situations developing where someone who is less likely to transmit COVID is being fired while someone more likely to transmit the disease is kept on - and everyone involved in the process knows it.

So would you be happy if in addition to vaccination and regular testing, regular antibody tests were also an alternative? And do you agree that this would also increase complexity (in my mind to questionable benefit)?

No, my vaccination protect me. They are not threat to me once I have been vaccinated, the data and science show this fact.

There is no reason for a vaccinated person to view an unvaccinated person as a threat.

* Vaccination is not 100% effective

* Vaccinated people do still spread the infection, albeit to a smaller degree

* Some people cannot be vaccinated, and for others it's less effective

For the above reasons, it's beneficial to me and society at large if as many people as possible are vaccinated.

>>Vaccination is not 100% effective

Nothing is, but my risk from COVID post vaccination is less than other society risks we accept as normal risks of living in a free society, for example my risk of dying in an auto accident is many times greater than my risk from COVID post vaccination

>> Vaccinated people do still spread the infection, albeit to a smaller degree

I am not sure how this statement is relative to question on if an unvaccinated person poses a risk to me to the point where we must violate their body autonomy for forcibly inject them with a medication against their will

>>Some people cannot be vaccinated, and for others it's less effective

While true, this means those people should take additional risk mitigation, this however is NOT a justification for vaccine mandates, not in my view. These people should wear N95 Masks, take extra pro cations and be extra vigilant about social distancing and/or going to large public events.

>>For the above reasons, it's beneficial to me and society at large if as many people as possible are vaccinated.

Sure, but that is not what is being debated. The question is do those reasons justify the use of force,threats, and ultimately government violence to forcibly inject people.

I say no.

No one has suggested forcibly injecting anyone. But sure, not allowing people who aren’t vaccinated to participate in all facets of society can be construed as a type of force. Unlike you I see that as reasonable.

All government action and regulations are back by the threat of violence. This is an irrefutable fact, since the is the way government enforces their actions. Sure the first stage maybe masked in the guise of non-violence in the form of fine or other punishments but underlying all of that is the fact that if you resist a person with a gun will show up to force your compliance

Your are correct that I do not find the small risk vaccinated person's have from an unvaccinated person to be at a level to justify mandates as reasonable

>not allowing people who aren’t vaccinated to participate in all facets of society can be construed as a type of force.

"Not allowing" - how are you going to "not allow" without using force of some sort?

Yes, there’s force backing those prohibitions (I literally mention that in the sentence you quoted), but what I wrote was that no one is talking about forcefully injecting anyone. You can decline the vaccine, parts of the rest of society just won’t allow you to interact with them. But if you’re the type to value your negative liberty that much, I’m sure you can manage without?

No, I wouldn't accept that approach either. But at least it would be focusing on the risk instead of being a status play. At the moment you're accepting a risk without knowing anyone's antibody titer at all. It says a lot about the situation that nobody is measuring it and nobody minds that it isn't being measured. People's susceptibility to COVID is barely in the conversation. A risk-based strategy is not being employed.

Despite all these measures you are still going to be exposed to the coronavirus. Just like the every flu that we've dealt with for the last however many thousand years. This rigmarole is just upsetting people for no real gain to you.

Of course everyone around you being vaccinated is safer and less risky for you (and for them as well). And sure there are other approaches that might be even more effective at reducing risk (like measuring antibodies), but that would also be much more complicated.

What is "less risk"? If you mean being exposed to someone who can shed the virus, vaccinated people can shed the virus asymptomatically. You are far more likely to unknowingly be exposed to the virus from a vaccinated person than from an unvaccinated person.

Our media and so-called health leaders have dramatically oversold the value of these vaccines. Yes, they can help with the severity of reaction when you are exposed but they aren't some defensive bubble.

And I think that's the real issue here - being exposed to the virus and each persons reaction and risks carried in that reaction to the exposure are two different things, but they are lumped together - which shouldn't be.

I'd consider lives saved as a gain.

>People have a right to be unvaccinated, and the rest of us have a right to protect ourselves from them.

No you don t. You took a vaccine that s supposed to protect you. You don t have any right to impose it through mandates on others. This is hiding malicious intent behind "what about the children" argument. You got your shot, you re protected and under no threat, move on with your life and leave people and their rights alone.

>People have a right to be unvaccinated, and the rest of us have a right to protect ourselves from them.

If your vaccinated and have the protection, what's the real issue?

If you want to go down the whole "protection" rabbit hole - and ostensibly I'm going to assume you mean protection from exposure to the virus, then the vaccinated are far more of a problem. An unvaccinated person can not shed (spread) the virus unless they are symptomatic - ie. have a fever. Checking for a fever is trivial to do in a non-invasive way.

Vaccinated people can not only be carrying but shedding (spreading) the virus while showing zero symptoms. So the only way to tell if a vaccinated person is a potential super spreader is through testing - that is neither as quick or easy as just taking someone's fever.

An utter 180 from your position. If anyone is concerned about protection from exposure, you would be looking at protection from the vaccinated - not the unvaccinated!

The actual question is "should these people be employed if they make choices that cause customers to die?"

This hyperbole doesn't help anyone. I'm vaccinated, and I encourage vaccination, but with the moving goal posts of the last 2 years and the fact that the vaccinations (while helping to prevent hospitalizations and severe illness) don't seem to have as drastic effect on spread, it's hard to blame people for re-evaluating the risk/reward.

These mandates will only cause people to dig in their position to become martyrs. It's bad policy, and its not helpful. We need more carrots than sticks here.

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