ANCHORAGE (AP) - A seafood processing company with multiple operations in Alaska and Washington state will require its employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
“Our team often works in close quarters and in remote communities with limited access to health care resources,” Rodger May, president at Peter Pan Seafood, said in a statement.
“Requiring employees to be vaccinated is the new gold standard. This is the best way I know to keep them and the communities we work in as healthy as possible,” May said.
The policy will be enacted in tiers. The first tier includes employees at company headquarters in Bellevue, Washington; its Seattle warehouse; Alaska processing facilities in Valdez, Port Moller, Dillingham: and Alaska support centers in Dillingham, Sand Point and Naknek.
Those employees already have a 95% vaccination rate. The others must be fully vaccinated by Oct. 1, the company said.
The second tier includes all employees at the processor’s facility in King Cove. A deadline for those employees will be announced later.
The company said 80% of its employees are included in the first tier, with the rest working in King Cove.
Exceptions will be made for people who have medical or religious reasons not to be vaccinated, but employees who don’t fall under those categories and choose not to be vaccinated will be fired, the company said in an email to the AP.
The mandatory vaccinations do not apply to crew members in the fishing fleet, which operate separately from Peter Pan, the email said.
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