Seeking help…
Good Afternoon Everyone and especially RN,
I lurkalot, but read virtually every post on this thread. You folks in many ways are friends and confidants though we haven’t met. Quick aside: From the many post over the years I’ve gleaned that one poster is an old shipmate, and another, to whom I was able introduce myself just this past Tuesday night, is a member of two local organizations that I belong to. Hope one day to meet more of you, perhaps at the join up.
Yesterday, Friday, we got the notification where I work of implementation of the presidential mandate.
From the responses here I know that I am not alone in this situation. I am very fortunate in this as the first day I can retire is always today. So, I am contemplating what course of action is best. It’s come down to two choices, try to work the system and retire next year as planned (my retirement package was already submitted), or retire now.
There are many considerations either way, but the first course allows me fight the good fight, obstruct, and attempt to inform as many as might listen as to the reasons (including support of the Constitution which I have sworn to since July 1978) for not taking the jab. The other path is leave as soon as possible, showing my contempt for the system that has broken faith with so many who gave so much of their lives and energy to contribute to the common good. This second course of action will have the added benefit of allowing me to begin life in retirement sooner, where I will have more time to do those things important to me (prolife work, teaching the faith to young people at church and the many things I enjoy that I cannot do now as works takes a lot of my, beginning to wane, energy).
Disciplinary action can begin as early as 9 November for those of us recalcitrant folk who reject the jab.
The first thing that I am seeking help with is to find a report mentioned some time back in about a Department of Defense or perhaps a Department of the Navy report about cold like symptoms experienced by about 30 percent of military personnel who received the yearly flu shots.
This report would become part of my response and preparation for the counseling I will receive as part of the disciplinary process. Here I want to thank you Ransomnote for the tremendous work of compiling data and references about the dangers of the COVID “vaccine”. Many of those references will also be in my response.
The second item thing I would like to know are your thoughts on my courses of action. Many here have served the country in the military, civil service or as contractors, many are retired already and can give a longer range perspective. I think everyone here (the trollish excepted) love this country and what makes it so special both in history and in the world today.
Thank you very much. VR/Pat
Despite being approved for religious exemptions for the COVID-19 vaccine, an employee reported that 140 staff at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, face unpaid leave beginning Oct. 15.
Leon Workman, a Linux systems engineer with ORNL, told The Epoch Times that though he was approved for a religious and medical exemption, he will join the 140 employees who will be left without a paycheck.
“It’s blatant religious discrimination,” Workman said. “A religious exemption without an accommodation is not a religious exemption.”
The research laboratory is managed by the University of Tennessee-Battelle (UT-Battelle), a not-for-profit company established to operate the U.S. Department of Energy-sponsored center comprised of 5,500 staff members.
In a Sept. 22 email Workman disclosed, ORNL’s Human Resources Director Jody Zahn told employees who had filed for an exemption that regular testing and allowing employees to continue to work from home, as they have been doing since January 2020, would cause “undue hardship” on the center.
“In evaluating your request, UT-Battelle has concluded that the only reasonable accommodation that we can provide to you without presenting an undue hardship is to allow you to remain a UT-Battelle employee, but without access to campus, by providing you with an unpaid leave of absence,” Zahn said. “You may elect to designate vacation time use prior to beginning your unpaid leave, but if you do not do so, your unpaid leave of absence will begin on Oct. 16 if you choose to remain unvaccinated.”
Zahn cited a high volume of approved requests, high transmission and low vaccination rates, a threat to health and safety of employees, and cost of testing the unvaccinated, as well as an intent for the center to bring remote workers back to the institute, as reasons for undue hardship.
“But unpaid leave is an undue hardship on an employee,” Workman said.
Workman filed for religious exemption in September and contracted the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus, the pathogen that causes COVID-19.
After being treated with monoclonal antibody infusion therapy, he applied for a medical exemption in addition to the religious exemption because of the CDC’s recommendation that one not get vaccinated 90 days after the treatment, he said.
The Fact Sheet
Human Resources formed a panel, with a fact sheet, and summoned 24 employees to interview regarding their exemption.
“Two days later they claimed that two individuals who were involved tested positive for COVID-19, so the next day the panel did a blanket approval of all religious exemptions without any kind of adjudication or discernment,” Workman said.
According to Workman, the panel had “aggressively pursued” each employee’s religious beliefs, using a fact sheet.
In the fact sheet, ORNL says that fetal cell lines have been used in earlier vaccines, over-the-counter medical products, and “have been used in the past by consumer product companies including Pepsi, Nestle, Kraft, Campbell Soup, and Coca-Cola to test the ingredients and enhance flavor.”
The fact sheet claims that COVID-19 vaccines don’t contain fetal cells or fetal cell products.
The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines being offered at ORNL “were designed on computers,” the fact sheet says, adding that “neither is produced using fetal cell lines.”
The fact sheet also claims that many religious faith leaders “favor COVID-19 vaccinations on the grounds of care for one’s neighbors, family, and self.”
Accompanying the fact sheet is the religious exemption certification form an employee must sign stating that he or she has read and understood the vaccination policy and the fact sheet.
“I am aware that fetal cell lines are used in the testing of other consumer products,” it says.
It then states that “honesty requires that we tell the truth, always, and that we do not mislead others,” therefore, “with this understanding,” the form asks that the employee to certify that he or she has not, does not, or will not “use any of the products identified above, nor any other product that was developed, produced, or tested using fetal cell lines.”
Among the products listed were over-the-counter medications such as Tylenol, Advil, and Preparation H.
Legal Recourse
Workman and about 80 other staff members involved have sought legal representation with Schaerr-Jaffe, the law firm representing United Airlines employees.
“We are hoping to have a temporary restraining order by Oct. 12, which would cause them to halt progress on forcing people on unpaid leave,” Workman said. In September, Schaerr-Jaffe negotiated a temporary restraining order that led to United Airlines agreeing to cease its plan to terminate 2,000 of its employees who declined to get the COVID-19 vaccine for religious or medical reasons.
A Stalemate
“They are scared to terminate us, probably because of misgivings about potential non-lawful termination, but it’s still a termination, although in a slow and painful way for the employees,” Workman said. “They are basically leaving us without paychecks for as long as it takes us to either force us to get the vaccine or to resign.”
ORNL was not immediately available for comment.
Dang!
Just got a reverse 911 message about an armed and dangerous fugitive in my neighborhood. “Lock doors and windows”. The, you know, “usual suspect”.
I went outside and saw cop cars blocking the street at either end.
Now I’m watering the front yard packing my ccw.
I can’t speak for your employer, but I’m in a similar boat as a federal employee. An internal email was leaked to our little group, but it’s not confirmed. The email outlines the steps of “discipline” that will take place for all the non-conformists, starting with several “conversations” at various levels, and ending in mandatory testing. it is very evident that, if this email is true, they do NOT want to let people go over this.
We basically should have a series of deadlines that will end in requiring non-vaccine people to get tested every 4 days starting in January, and at their own expense starting in April. No word on why they aren’t requiring the same testing protocol from vaxxed employees, given that they are at least as likely to carry and transmit the virus as the unvaxxed.
Anyway, I’m going to hold off as long as I can. I’m in a similar boat regarding retirement, and would like to hold off until next year also. I’m not even against testing, as long as I can do it at home and as long as it’s accurate. Frankly, I don’t want to go to work if I have the Rona, and if I get lucky enough to get a false positive, I get 14 days of paid sick leave time.
In our business, if the right key people get fired or leave, the power supply in the area would be in jeopardy. I’m in a critical function, but the people operating our 3 nuclear plants have even more leverage. There are regulations that mandate (I hate that word) minimum personnel requirements and levels of training for specific positions in those plants. If they can’t be met, the plant must be shut down, no way around it.
I’m just going to hang on and make them fire me. If they try to play the unpaid leave, I’ll just retire on the spot, then take them to court. Like yourself, I’m ready to go next year anyway. Was going to stay a lot longer, but I ran my numbers when this executive order came out and found out that I’m not in terrible shape (unless the left crashes the economy, which is their goal).
Are you a federal employee or a contractor, or a regular employee for a regular employer? That might have some leverage.