๐*GUIDE TO EMPLOYER INJECTION ULTIMATUMS* ๐
A comprehensive guide for folks facing imminent "vaccinate or terminate" employment policies.
๐*GUIDE TO EMPLOYER INJECTION ULTIMATUMS* ๐
The first thing you need to do is buck up. This is a spiritual war, and you need to be in top mental form to fight. They overwhelmed us; we lawyers are working on it night and day but there just arenโt enough of us to get in front of enough courts in the short amount of time before termination deadlines kick in. So get yourself ready to fight for yourself for now, if you have to:
โBetter to fight for something than live for nothing.โ
โ Gen. George S. Patton.
โWe, too, born to freedom, and believing in freedom, are willing to fight to maintain freedom. We, and all others who believe as deeply as we do, would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.โ
โ Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Look, this is an awful situation. But donโt feel hopeless or powerless. You have the high ground, morally and legally. Just because they are doing a bunch of lawless stuff, fast, doesnโt mean there wonโt eventually be justice. Why do I say that? Not only is what theyโre doing patently unconstitutional, but they are dumb, deluded, and desperate. Desperate because they are doing all this in such a hurry to stay away from the courts. And when you do things in a hurry, you make mistakes. They are going to make a LOT of mistakes.
What your employer is doing is also wicked. The Bible has a lot to suggest about what happens to people who plot wicked schemes against you:
โMay ruin befall them by surprise; may the net they hid ensnare them; may they fall into the hazard they created.โ
โ Psalm 35:8
โHe has dug a hole and hollowed it out; he has fallen into a pit of his own making.โ
โ Psalm 7:15.
โThey spread a net for my feet; my soul was despondent. They dug a pit before me, but they themselves have fallen into it! Selah.โ
โ Psalm 57:6.
โLet the wicked fall into their own nets, but let me escape.โ
โ Psalm 141:10.
โ *MANDATORY DISCLAIMER* โ
Before we get started, since Iโm a lawyer, hereโs the mandatory disclaimer that Iโm required to give you. This post is not legal advice. I am not your lawyer and this post does not create any attorney-client relationship. Use any suggestions herein at your own risk and consult your own counsel.
Now, letโs get going.
โ *FIRST PRINCIPLES* โ
Your employer is wrong.
What they are doing is illegal and unconstitutional. If itโs a government employer, they are violating Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Roe v. Wade, and a long line of bodily integrity cases flowing from those cases. The Methodist Hospital case and its sad progeny have been wrongly decided; threats of loss of employment ARE well-known to be coercive. See, e.g., Am. Fedโn of State, County & Mun. Employees Council 79 v. Rick Scott, 717 F.3d 851, 874 (11th Cir. 2013) (โIn effect, the State is offering its employees this Hobsonโs choice: either they relinquish their Fourth Amendment rights and produce a urine sample which carries the potential for termination, or they accept termination immediately โฆ To begin with, we do not agree that employeesโ submission to drug testing, on pain of termination, constitutes consent under governing Supreme Court case lawโ).
The โvaccinate or terminateโ policy is no less wrong because your employer is a private company (meaning, not run by government). The reason is because your private employer would not have done this BUT FOR the government coercing them to. The government canโt do something THROUGH a private actor that it would be illegal to do directly. See, e.g., Hammerhead Enterprises, Inc. v. Brezenoff, 707 F. 2d 33 (2d. Cir. 1983) (โWhere comments of a government official can reasonably be interpreted as intimating that some form of punishment or adverse regulatory action will follow the failure to accede to the officialโs request, a valid claim can be stated.โ).
So.
โ *FIRST STEPS* โ
Unless you have a solid financial reason, DO NOT QUIT. If you resign, you torch your rights to sue your employer later for damages if they wrongfully fire you. Thatโs exactly what they want you to do.
There will be a flotilla of arguments to sue private companies for wrongful termination, donโt you worry. When the dust clears, there is going to be a thousand times as much litigation over these firings than all the tobacco litigation put together. These employers arenโt going to know what hit them.
All these employer policies are designed to convince you to resign. Thatโs the best-case scenario for the employer. It absolves them from liability. Theyโll argue, who knows WHY the person quit? Could have been any reason. Uh-huh. Iโve seen memos stating that, โIf you do not sign this acknowledgment [to inject], then you will be deemed to have resigned.โ First of all, thatโs bogus and unenforceable. Second, donโt sign it, and donโt resign.
If you quit, youโll be ineligible for unemployment benefits. Those benefits cost your employer a lot of money. Make them pay.
What are some sound reasons to quit? Say youโve already found a better job. Take it and go. Or maybe youโre eligible for retirement or early retirement. Take the retirement and THEN go find another job. But if you donโt have a compelling financial reason, DO NOT QUIT.
If youโve already quit, donโt worry about it. We can still argue that you were constructively terminated. See, e.g., [Constructive dismissal - Wikipedia].
โ *HOW TO TIPTOE THROUGH THE EVIDENTIARY MINEFIELD* โ
If your employer has set an injection-or-termination deadline, they are also busy collecting evidence to use against you to defend themselves in a later lawsuit. Keep that in mind every time you send an email or text about the policy, or fill out a form, answer a questionnaire, or submit a โrequest for accommodation.โ
Anything you send your employer in writing, in whatever form, should begin with the words, โI want to keep my job. I have been a loyal and productive employee here since [DATE].โ If youโve received honors, excellent performance reviews, awards, or the like, add a line mentioning those. REPEAT THIS STATEMENT EVERY SINGLE TIME you talk about the policy in writing. Letโs call this the โJob Affirmation Statement.โ
Donโt put anything in writing that could be used against you. Save your temper tantrums and venting for outside the workplace. Never say anything negative or even slightly critical of your employer. If youโve already done that, offset it now by saying something positive and apologizing for your previous comments. IN WRITING.
Keep EVERYTHING. Build your evidence locker. What your future lawyer will want is evidence. Make a special file โ outside your employerโs file system โ to keep every single thing that relates to the policy; what you said, what they said, and so forth. Print every online form, FAQ, memorandum, etc. to PDF and save it to your evidence file.
Note: I am NOT saying to avoid talking to them about the policy. Just the opposite. Talk to them a LOT. In a positive way. Weโre trying to get them to make mistakes and say something we can use against them later.
Finally, BCC your own personal email account on all your communications with them. That way you'll have access to those emails even if your email account is unexpectedly closed down.
(If youโre a lawyer for a big employer reading this to find out what Iโm suggesting to folks, first, you should be ashamed of yourself. Second, get stuffed. When the dust finally clears, weโre coming for your client, hard.)
โ *HOW TO DOCUMENT ORAL COMMUNICATIONS* โ
Iโve noticed a lot of these employers are trying super hard not to create evidence that can be used against THEM. So tons of communications about these policies are being handled orally. โPlease call HR to discuss,โ and so forth.
Thatโs no problem. After you have an oral conversation with a manager at your company about the policy, go right back to your workstation, and compose an email to that person. Hereโs what to put in it:
1) Thank them and frame it as your professional attempt to make sure you understood everything (โThanks for the informative conversation just now. I wanted to recap what we discussed to make sure I understood everything you said and didnโt miss anything.โ)
2) State the Job Affirmation Statement (โTo be clear, I want to keep my jobโฆโ).
3) Recap what they said. โAs I recall, you said BLH BLAH BLAH.โ
4) If itโs important, recap what YOU said: โI said, BLAH BLAH BLAH.โ
5) Ask for correction (โPlease let me know ASAP if Iโve misunderstood anything, or left anything important out.โ)
6) Thank them again (โThanks so much for taking the time to assist me with these difficult matters. I appreciate it very much.โ)
Then print the email out to PDF and save it in your evidence locker. If they respond, add the response. Document EVERYTHING.
โ *ASK TO BE RELEASED FROM YOUR RESTRICTIVE COVENANTS* โ
Many of you will also be subject to long-standing โrestrictive covenants,โ like non-disclosures, non-solicitation agreements, and non-competes.
Send an email RIGHT NOW asking to be released from those if you are ultimately terminated. First review the employee handbook or your employment agreement to find all these. Then, write HR something like this, but in your own words:
โHi. [JOB AFFIRMATION STATEMENT]. But, in the event that I /am/ terminated due to the vaccine policy, please consider this to be my formal request to be released from my non-compete, non-disclosure, and non-solicitation restrictions [modify as appropriate]. If I do not hear back from you I will assume that you have agreed.โ
Document it. They may or may not respond. If they do send you something from legal that says โyou canโt do thatโ or the like, just email back, โI disagree, but hopefully that wonโt be an issue, because [JOB AFFIRMATION STATEMENT].โ Document everything into your evidence locker.
โ *CHECK YOUR EMPLOYMENT AGREEMENT* โ
Most of you are at-will employees with no definite employment agreement. But some of you HAVE employment agreements, especially if youโre an executive or a salesman. Review your employment agreement. It probably doesnโt say anything about having to take experimental EUA drugs. Now would be a good time to point this out to your employer, that they are breaching by adding conditions not in the contract. If they push back, say youโll get a lawyer if you have to, but youโll expect them to pay for it if it turns out you were right.
โ *WORK TOGETHER* โ
There is nothing whatsoever wrong with putting up a flyer in the break room, or even sending a company-wide email for that matter, asking other people who donโt want the injection to meet up after hours to discuss the situation. Just donโt spend a lot of work time on organizing and donโt use company equipment to do it. Do the organizing and printing on your own time.
If you find you have a big enough group, discuss ways to (legally) put pressure on your employer. Maybe you can all take vacation at the same time, for example. (If youโre subject to a collective bargaining agreement, talk to your union lawyer before you do that. Otherwise, you should be good.)
Donโt try to hurt their business, at least, not directly, not as your primary goal. You have a common-law duty of loyalty to your employer, so donโt be doing dumb stuff like emailing confidential materials to competitors or anything like that. Donโt lie. Keep the high ground. But be firm. Use ALL the legal tools available to you.
โ *MORE COMMENTS ON RELIGIOUS EXEMPTIONS* โ
Iโve previously written a primer on how to write religious exemption requests: [โชPRIMER ON RELIGIOUS EXEMPTION REQUESTSโช - by Jeff Childers - โ๏ธ Coffee & Covid 2021 ๐ฆ ]
Now, letโs talk some more about this most powerful exemption.
First of all, the big employers are DEFINITELY discriminating against religious folks. Rampantly. Itโs disgusting, and it shows how lost and pagan the corporate world has become. I weep for those people.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of their sincerely held religious beliefs. See 42 U.S.C. ยง2000e-2(a) (โIt shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer . . . to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment because of such individualโs race, color, religion, sex, or national originโ).
Itโs not just sincerely-held religious beliefs either. Atheists arenโt left out. Title VIIโs protections also extend nonreligious beliefs if they are related to morality, ultimate ideas about life, purpose, and death. See EEOC, Questions and Answers: Religious Discrimination in the Workplace (June 7, 2008), (โTitle VIIโs protections also extend to those who are discriminated against or need accommodation because they profess no religious beliefsโ).
Thatโs why they are going to such great lengths to document your โreligious exemption request.โ Theyโre scared of the lawsuits. If they fire you over your religious beliefs, and canโt show the employment policy was reasonable, or that there was no reasonable way they could accommodate you, then they will probably ultimately be liable for all your financial damages. So.
Let me be clear about something. Thereโs no such thing as a โreligious exemption REQUEST.โ You donโt have to REQUEST it. Itโs the LAW. They have to accommodate your religious or moral beliefs. Itโs the employerโs burden, not yours. All you have to do is NOTIFY THEM of your sincerely-held religious or moral beliefs. Stop thinking you have to beg for it.
Whatโs a sincerely-held moral belief? That compulsory medical treatments similar to those seen in Nuremberg are EVIL. That the top people pushing these injections are immoral, bad people. That abortion is wrong and the fruits of abortion are equally wrong (all three of the currently available Covid injections are developed and produced from, tested with, researched on, or otherwise connected with the aborted fetal cell lines HEK-293 and PER.C6). That employers canโt treat their employees like cattle. That employers canโt treat their employeesโ bodies like equipment to be upgraded or something.
Hereโs what your sincerely-held moral or religious beliefs do NOT have to be:
โ Religious. As I said, it doesnโt even have to be a religious belief, just a sincerely-held moral or ethical belief.
โ Consistent with previous actions, like other vaccines you might have taken. Doesnโt matter.
โ โ[A]cceptable, logical, consistent, or comprehensible to others in order to merit [legal] protection.โ
โ Long-standing. Even newly-acquired beliefs are fine, so long as they are sincerely-held. Go get baptized. Itโs time you did it anyway. A good church will provide you with a social safety net, worst come to worst.
โ Consistent with generally accepted tenets of your religious denomination (โwe reject the notion that to claim the protection, one must be responding to the commands of a particular religious organizationโ).
I am aware that a lot of these employers are rejecting religious accommodation requests en masse. Thatโs fantastic evidence of religious discrimination right there. Thatโs an employer falling into a trap of its own making. Thatโs a ton of lawsuits waiting to happen after people are terminated and start encountering financial damages.
In fact, itโs SO bizarre that employers would be rejecting religious accommodation requests en masse that it makes me think they might just be playing chicken and are going to back down once they get enough people to take the jab through anxiety and pressure tactics. They couldnโt be THAT stupid, could they?
If you can get them to say something anti-religious in an email, that is legal GOLD. So let your religious and moral beliefs shine. Talk about them a LOT.
Summary: make your religious or moral objections and stick to your guns. Do not quit.
โ *WHAT TO DO IF YOUR โREQUESTโ IS REJECTED* โ
If your employer rejects your religious exemption โrequest,โ send this email to HR:*
โ[JOB AFFIRMATION STATEMENT]. But I was confused just now when I received this notification that you are โrejectingโ my religious beliefs. That makes no sense to me. My religious beliefs are deeply-held and I do not recognize your authority to reject them. To be clear, I have notified you of my sincerely held religious beliefs. I expect you to accommodate them. Please govern yourself accordingly.โ
* Substitute โmoral beliefsโ as appropriate.
Document, document, document.
โ *SHOULD YOU PERSUADE YOUR EMPLOYER TO CHANGE COURSE?* โ
Absolutely try to persuade them to change the policy. Some employers have already changed course, so itโs not a complete lost cause. Send them studies, articles, Bible verses, or essays that youโve written. Liberally use your Job Affirmation Statement and keep a positive attitude. Document everything, especially responses.
โ *WHAT ABOUT YOUR NATURAL IMMUNITY?* โ
If you have natural immunity from a prior Covid infection, TELL YOUR EMPLOYER. Go get an antibody test. Not all the tests are equal. Some are more accurate than others. Do your homework. And there are false negatives. So donโt give up if your first one is negative, if you know for sure you had the virus. A LOT of us have. Weโre the ones not getting sick now.
The fact that you notified your employer about your natural immunity might be terrific evidence later, depending on how the law evolves. Document, document, document.
โ *INJECT OR TEST POLICIES* โ
Suppose you are one of the fortunate ones to be facing an โinject or testโ policy. Testing, ESPECIALLY unnecessary testing or discriminatory testing, is also invasive and unconstitutional. But take it for now unless you are 100% committed to going the distance. For Heavenโs sake, donโt take the injection to avoid a testing requirement. Weโll come back and clear these up later.
โ *THERE IS NO FEDERAL MANDATE FOR PRIVATE EMPLOYERS* โ
While there is an executive order requiring federal employees and contractors to get the injections, as of the date of this post, there is NO federal mandate for private employers like Joe Biden announced while he was drowning in bad press after his Afghanistan disaster. Thereโs not even an executive order directing OSHA to create the rule.
See [Joe Bidenโs Vaccine Mandate Doesnโt Exist. Itโs Just A Press Release].
If your employer is trying to use the Biden private-employer mandate as an excuse to require the injections, send them that Federalist article.
โ *STATUS OF LAWSUITS, SHOULD YOU JOIN UP?* โ
Finally! A LOT of lawyers are filing a lot of lawsuits right now. I canโt even keep up with them all any more. It will only take one โ the RIGHT one โ for everything to resolve favorably. So hang in there.
If thereโs a lawsuit going in your area, for sure join up. Not all lawsuits are equal in quality or chances. But just remember, all of this is illegal and unconstitutional. Judges are going to start coming to their senses at some point.
โ *RESOURCES* โ
For whatever reason, traditional civil rights firms have been totally useless, irrelevant, nowhere to be seen. Iโve been profoundly disappointed by the Alliance Defending Freedom, for example. Take a look at their website. Not one thing about coerced injections on the home page. Itโs reprehensible. They claim to stand up for religious freedom.
But Liberty Counsel is doing great work. (https://lc.org). They have a ton of helpful stuff on their website. So is Robert Kennedyโs group, the Childrenโs Health Defense group (https://childrenshealthdefense.org). I think weโre seeing the rise of the new civil rights law firms.
There are also a lot of no-vax job boards popping up, like novaxjobsusa.com, novaxmandate.org, and Gab (https://gab.com/groups/49159). You might want to post your resume up there somewhere.
โ *BE STRONG AND DONโT QUIT* โ
Remember what they used to say? โQuitters never win.โ Donโt quit.
If worst comes to worst, and they fire you, carefully document ALL your financial damages. What goes around WILL come around.
And hang on! We could win this thing any time now. The Biden Administration is collapsing in the polls. The Europeans have stopped listening to the CDC (more on that tomorrow). The dam looks like it might be breaking again, like the mask dam broke late last year.
โ *HELP LIKE YOU MEAN BUSINESS* โ
Itโs all hands on deck. If this article was helpful to you, PLEASE consider a significant donation to the cause. You can pledge here: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-. This isnโt a small deal. This is a BIG deal, maybe the biggest in our lifetimes. We are up against the biggest government in history with the deepest pockets. We donโt need to match them, but we need to stay in the game. If you canโt help directly, please consider helping financially.
If I am mandated from my union position and I decide to retire, can my employer, union, or the government keep me from receiving my pension at some point??
I have a thought for a new section. What if you already got one of the injection options, but do not want to present the completed vaccine card to your employer? Say ... it's not your employer's business, why should the employer know what you did, and why should you even have to seek an exemption. You don't want your employer to have your dates to force you to take booster shots. You have decided since getting the injection that you do not want any boosters (never part of the deal, you saw the Project Veritas whistleblower videos, you or a relative had adverse effects). You don't want your coworkers to be forced to give a card or have to fight for an exemption.