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McDonald’s said in a note to its employees last Wednesday that it will delay the reopening of its corporate offices and require its corporate staff to be fully vaccinated from COVID-19.
The Chicago-based company said its restaurant-level employees, which according to Workstream, is a typical McDonald’s worker who earns around US $8 per hour… will not be mandated to take the vaccine.
Heidi Capozzi, McDonald’s global chief people officer, said in an internal note viewed by CNBC that the company was informed by a number of its corporate staffers that they would feel more comfortable returning to the office knowing for certain that their colleagues were vaccinated.
“We are also being asked by state and local governments to require vaccinations for corporate employees because getting more of the population vaccinated reduces our own chances of being infected and contributes to community protection,” she said.
The National Restaurant News reported that the mandate affects the company’s U.S.-based office workers and not the employees who work at their restaurant locations. The corporate offices—which were expected to reopen on 7 September—have been delayed until 11 October.
Capozzi said in the note that the company made its decision “in close consultation with our partners at the Mayo Clinic and with guidance from public health officials.”
The report said employees who have been fully vaccinated could return to the offices on 7 September. The delay in reopening is so unvaccinated employees have a chance to take the shot. McDonald’s said it will pay employees four hours of work to get the vaccine.
Todd Penegor, the CEO of Wendy’s Co., said in an interview Thursday that the vaccine will not be a requirement for corporate staff. He said vaccinations were a personal choice.
Ronald Klain, the White House chief, took to Twitter on Friday to announce that vaccinations reached their highest 24-hour total since before 4 July. He said there were 918,000 doses administered and 576,000 people newly vaccinated, which is up from 821,000 and 565,000 respectively last Friday, NBC News reported.
The report pointed out that McDonald’s made its announcement at about the same time that the New York Stock Exchange and NBCUniversal announced a similar mandate.
The Trends Journal has reported on how top companies are planning to approach office work in a post-COVID era. On 10 August, in an article titled, “AMAZON PUSHES BACK RETURN FOR ITS CORPORATE WORKERS, BUT THOSE AT FULFILLMENT CENTERS MUST REPORT TO WORK,” we reported that Amazon also announced that it would delay a return to the office for its corporate employees until at least 2022.
Workers at the company’s massive fulfillment centers are required to return to work—unlike their corporate colleague—and will have to wear masks to prevent the spread of the Delta variant. One truck loader at a facility in Washington told The Seattle Times that it is “frustrating” that the company would “protect their corporate workers [as] opposed to continually supporting warehouse associates.”
TREND FORECAST: The White House is celebrating the fact that it strong-armed America last week, with more companies mandating their employees get the COVID-19 jabs. The message is now clear: If you do not take the vaccine you will be destroyed financially and socially. You will lose your job and then can’t even go out and have a beer after you get the pink slip… without a vax passport.
And as evidenced by McDonald’s and Amazon, different strokes for different folks. While the office employees are deemed vax-essential, the plantation workers of Slavelandia are expendable, replaceable and “non-essential.”
Thus, we maintain our forecast for various sectors of society that spread across political spectrums, religions and belief systems will unite under a new Freedom/anti-establishment umbrella.
TREND FORECAST: With more people working from home, we maintain our forecast for a long trend of a weakening commercial real estate sector. Confirming what we had forecast over a year ago, according to a recent study by Fitch Ratings, if companies surrender 10 percent of their office space as workers remain at home permanently, the value of office buildings could plummet as much as 40 percent.
Also, the commercial real estate market still faces the end of government largesse: the U.S. Federal Reserve’s bond-buying spree will taper off at some point, and interest rates will rise. When interest rates rise, the commercial real estate sector will sharply decline.