While U.S. institutions are dead set on forcing the COVID-19 vaccine on their employees, some Americans are fighting back with lawsuits and even walking out on their jobs in protest of the draconian demands.
After months of promising that his administration would not mandate the COVID-19 jab, President Joe Biden required the shot for federal workers and later directed the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to create a vaccine requirement for private businesses with 100 or more employees.
While some red state governors have taken action to protect their residents from mandates that would violate their freedom to make independent medical decisions about the COVID-19 jab, other states have taken steps to force their own employees and residents into getting the shot in the name of combatting the virus and keeping hospitalization numbers down. Even before the government became involved in vaccine mandates, corporations and companies were lording their firing power over the working class to force them to get the shot or risk losing their income.
Despite an avalanche of new requirements that compel people to get the shot or lose their jobs, Americans are using the power of protest to send a message.
Last week, city employees in Gainesville, Florida were awarded a temporary injunction against their employer’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate by Alachua County Civil Circuit Judge Monica Brasington. The temporary injunction was part of a lawsuit filed on Aug. 26 in response to the city’s vaccine requirement for all city employees. More than 200 employees expressed hesitancy about the city’s demands for them to get the COVID-19 jab.
Even without legal action, some institutions were forced to opt out of mandates or provide their employees with alternatives to getting the COVID-19 shot. Nurses, doctors, and other staff at Piggott Community Hospital in Arkansas were spared this week from a vaccine mandate after administrators realized that requiring the shot would push out too many essential workers necessary to keep the medical center up and running.
In Massachusetts, dozens of state troopers resigned over Gov. Charlie Baker’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for state employees after a state judge denied the police union’s request for a block. With approximately 20 percent of the state’s police force still unvaccinated, the governor’s executive order said that officers who were not in compliance with the directive by Oct. 17 should be fired, which left some troopers who didn’t want the jab with no option but to walk out.
“It is unfortunate that the Governor and his team have chosen to mandate one of the most stringent vaccine mandates in the country with no reasonable alternatives,” State Police Association of Massachusetts President Michael Cherven said in a statement.
