Posted originally on the conservative tree house on December 14, 2021 | Sundance | 226 Comments

Reuters is reporting on an interesting dynamic within the vaccine mandate as it pertains to Amtrak.  Reading between the lines tells us something very specific about this vaccine mandate that we have discussed here, and it’s starting to show.

The article itself points to how Amtrak is suspending their vaccine mandate as a result of the federal courts blocking enforcement of any mandate pending litigation.  From their perspective as a federal contractor, Amtrak is now in a position to cease the vaccine requirement until the legal issues are resolved.  However, there’s an element touched upon that needs to be considered.

First the article (the emphasis is mine):

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.

Currently, fewer than 500 active Amtrak employees are not in compliance. Last week, the railroad told Congress it anticipated “proactively needing to temporarily reduce some train frequencies across our network” because of the mandate.

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.

Amtrak cited a U.S. district court decision that halted the enforcement of President Joe Biden’s executive order mandating vaccines for federal contractors by January. “This caused the company to reevaluate our policy and to address the uncertainty about the federal requirements that apply to Amtrak,” the memo said. (read more)

Let’s cut through some politically correct corporate speech and media spin, and instead focus on a few key aspects:

First, the cause of the operational change, a frequency change in Amtrak service, was specifically admitted to be due to the vaccine mandate.  This is EXACTLY the opposite of the White House claim earlier today (see below).  The vaccine mandate was the cause of the operational change.  Amtrak admits this – the White House refutes this.

Second, a reduction of 500 non-vaccinated people amid a company payroll exceeding 17,000, to the extent that the reduction actually changes the operational service of the company, tells us the unvaccinated people were specifically critical to the service the company provides.

This second point gets to the heart of a thesis we have proposed before.   It’s not an issue of how many people, or what percentage, quit over a vaccine requirement.  It’s a more specific issue of WHO those people are and what they do.

In any organization, there are people critical to the operation and people not so critical.

In a cumbersome top-heavy organization, that relies upon government largess and subsidy to operate, employment is bloated beyond what is efficient.  I have long stated that the key group of most productive people, the very critical group for efficient operation, are a small subset of the total company employment.

I would bet, and it is essentially admitted by the statement from Amtrak, that a much higher percentage of the critical workers are refusing the vaccine than exist in the total employment ranks.  The most productive and critical employees within any organization are independent minded, dependable and capable of a much larger influence than the average person.  It is inside that core group of highly critical employees where effects from a vaccine mandate refusal makes the biggest impact.

As a result, the issue for any mandate is not the percentage of compliance overall, but rather how those very critical employees respond to the mandate.

There can be a specific skillset or duty needed in an organization, even a massive organization, that is only being done by a handful of specifically skilled people.  If those people stop working, the effect on the entire organization is far beyond scale.   In some instances, even in large organizations, that handful of people can shut down the entire operation if they do not perform their job(s).

500 out of 17,000 is only 3%,… yet that 3% were obviously critical enough to the operation of Amtrak in such a scale as the organization was planning to modify it’s entire operation due to their absence.   This fact points as evidence to the theory that the most critical blue-collar people inside every organization carry a tremendous amount of clout when it comes to this vaccine mandate.

It’s not a matter of how many refuse the mandate, it’s an issue of who they are.

The blue-collar effort to bolster the resistance by these brothers and sisters in freedom, does not have to be too massive to have an impact. Remember, almost all of the leftists and elite-minded communists, who now operate as Democrats, have no capacity for self-sufficiency.  If the working class stops picking up their trash, stops mowing their lawns, shopping for them, doing their cleaning and essentially facilitating their lives, this entire group of people cannot function.

If the always dependable shift-worker who never misses a day of work; the person who is always dutiful, diligent, trustworthy and can solve problems independently; the person who goes the extra mile and is proactive in planning their responsibilities, does not show up with the keys to be the switch operator, well, then the switch doesn’t get operated.  And, that person is very hard to replace.

Remember, the part where Amtrak said the change in service schedules was due to the vaccine? Well, here’s the White House denying the change in Amtrak services was caused by the vaccine.  WATCH:

From a commonsense and logistical perspective, regardless of the federal outlook, there’s no way they can pull it off.  We are the quiet, and according to those who look down their noses – the “invisible” unwashed masses.  However, when it comes to keeping the gears turning, we are the majority.

We keep their shit working and just want to be left alone.   The system will not function if tens-of-millions of American workers stand united against the vaccine mandate. It really is that simple.