Posted on 02/06/2021 7:17:14 AM PST by Kaslin
MADISON — A Rock County-owned nursing home policy that mandates employees get the COVID-19 vaccination or be laid off is “illegal and unenforceable,” according to a cease-and-desist letter filed on behalf of a nursing home employee.
“By implementing its vaccine mandate, your (facility) is attempting to coerce all of its employees into receiving one of the COVID-19 Vaccines,” Elizabeth Brehm, attorney at New York-based Siri Glimstad law firm, wrote on behalf of Amber DeJaynes, a staff member at the Rock Haven skilled nursing facility in Janesville.
The legal effort appears to be led by the Informed Consent Action Network, a Texas-based vaccine skeptic organization, sources tell Wisconsin Spotlight. It also runs counter to Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidance that allows employers to mandate vaccinations, with exceptions.
‘Illegal requirement’
The letter, obtained by Wisconsin Spotlight, was sent to Rock Haven Interim Nursing Home Administrator Sara Beran and Rock County Administrator Josh Smith on Tuesday. It informs each that the mandatory vaccination policy is depriving the employees of their statutorily guaranteed rights to decide whether to receive the shot.
“Your company is doing so openly without any regard for the personal medical decisions of the employee,” Brehm wrote. “We hereby demand that you withdraw your COVID-19 vaccine requirement … Failure to do so immediately will result in legal action being filed against you to strike down this illegal requirement. Govern yourselves accordingly.”
Beran and Smith did not return Wisconsin Spotlight’s phone messages seeking comment. Neither did the attorney.
But the letter lays out why employers cannot make the COVID-19 vaccination compulsory.
The Food and Drug Administration in December granted emergency use authorization for two vaccines — produced by Pfizer and Moderna. They are said to be 95 percent effective in preventing COVID-19, but they are in many ways experimental, unlicensed vaccines. They have not been fully approved by the FDA. Much remains unknown about the long-term effects and efficacy of the vaccines, which, by drug approval standards, were developed at lightening speeds.
As the cease-and-desist letter points out, the same law that authorizes emergency use requires the public to have “the option to accept or refuse administration of the product.”
The statutory prohibitions are included in FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance and regulations, according to the legal letter. Dr. Mandy Cohen, executive secretary of the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, has publicly stated under Emergency Use Authorization, “vaccines are not allowed to be mandatory.”
“Sheets for Recipients and Caregivers for both COVID-19 vaccines state on the first page, ‘It is your choice to receive the (COVID-19 Vaccine,” the letter states.
Employer rights
But EEOC guidance asserts that employees who refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccination may be excluded from the workplace.
“Moreover, the EEOC’s Guidance underscores that anti-discrimination laws do not prevent employers from adhering to public health directives from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or other federal, state, and local public health agencies,” according to the National Law Review.
There are exceptions. Employees do have protections under civl rights, disability and religious conviction laws. And employers should exhibit extreme caution before firing someone over a compulsory vaccination policy.
“ ..(W)hile the employer may exclude that employee from the workplace, it should avoid terminating the employee or taking additional adverse actions before carefully evaluating whether the employee can work remotely or has protected rights under other employment laws or regulations at the federal, state, and local level,” the National Law Review piece advises.
Wisconsin lawmakers have introduced a bill that would prohibit the kind of mandatory vaccination policies in question at Rock Haven nursing home.
’Strong-armed’
Sources close to the situation tell Wisconsin Spotlight nursing home administrators have bullied the staff with the policy. Employees were told they would not be eligible for unemployment benefits if they were laid off for refusing to receive the vaccine. Other sources claim some of the staff members suffered from “severe reactions” to the first shot, with one ending up in the Emergency Room.
Several employees have been let go or quit because of the policy, sources say.
In a letter to the county board, Rock Haven maintenance worker Ron Machaj said he knows of at least six employees who chose not to get the shot. He said one employee was laid off indefinitely, or until they comply with vaccination, and two chose to retire early, although they had not intended to do so. Another quit. That was in early January. The numbers have grown since.
“I have spoken with many others who felt they were strong-armed into getting vaccinated,” Machaj wrote.
Betty Halverson, in a letter written on Jan. 12, said she has been employed at Rock Haven for nearly 20 years. She said she’s 65 and has concerns about the vaccine, and she wasn’t getting good answers.
“My only option is to take a layoff and lose my insurance,” she wrote. “What kind of gratitude is that for an employee that has given almost 20 years to help care for our elderly and rehab residents, and worked many, many hours to help keep them safe.”
“Please to not make the COVID-(19) vaccine mandated. Let us decide.”
Sounds like a great time to be a class action attorney
Well, instead of being laid off, may they should just be assigned the most undesirable work? That’s legal, isn’t it?
Employment at will. Your employer has the right to terminate you for any reason.
These facilities can and do mandate flu shots for both residents and employees.
Are the WuFlu shots mandatory for residents as well, I wonder...?
At my place the rabid forced healthcare folks are salivating to make this a mandate. After all.. your just a mass killer if you do not submit.
Most of the staff actually caring for patients are likely unionized, so they’re not at will hires.
So which right is supreme.
The right to refuse the vaccine.
Or, The right to infect nursing home residents.
Vaccines for both residents and staff make good sense in residential care settings.
The problem is that both Big Med and Big Pharma have squandered the nation’s trust.
This is such a freaking mess.
Doubt that, the unionization, that is. Nursing home employees, that are not nurses or doctors, are treated like crap.
Maybe the nursing home bosses should take care of the patients themselves.
Perhaps it appears to make sense, however I would not be in favor of mandatory vaccines. I would not support this.
“Sounds like a great time to be a class action attorney”
absolutely ... it’s insane for employers to mandate vaccinations with investigational (experimental) vaccines that do NOT have FDA approval (Emergency Use Authorization is NOT the same thing as approval) ...
My company just sent out an email highly encouraging us to get the shot. They’re smart enough to know they can’t require it.
If they try, I’ll be sending them an attorney letter defining the cost to them if I encounter any side effects at all.
Masked nursing home staff and my elderly Aunt didn’t leave the facility, she still got infected and still died. It’s been events like this that gave me the realization that masks aren’t foolproof.
You might be right since this one is owned by the county... other than that in our area I know of no nursing homes that are unionized.
Extremely Extreme Extremist wrote: “Well, with the way people are dropping dead like flies after taking the vaccine,...”
It was incredibly difficult taking my walk this morning with all the dead bodies lying across the sidewalk. I almost tripped over several. Many were still clutching their vaccine appointment slips for their second does.
My 88 year old aunt is in a nursing home in Oklahoma. I was there in July, after the lockdown. I sat outside by the front door and watched a ton of people coming and going....that didn’t work there....and had no business being there. My cousin that spends a lot of time down there was with me so she’d say things like....that’s Kathy, she works here, but her 17 year old son that is with her doesn’t. We watched people that work there go in and out with their friends in tow. Like their day off and they were picking up their paychecks or something. But absolutely no family was allowed in to see their relatives. Oh yeah, and just recently a whole bunch of residents were positive when tested...my aunt among them, even though she never had any symptoms.
The institution has the right to prevent non-vaccinated people from working there.
I can attest that both Dane and Rock Counties in Wisconsin have totally gone off the deep end with this Wuhan Flu cr@pola.
EVERY person involved in ‘government’ in those Counties is a Full Frontal Communist.
And it INFECTS the remainder of our state in very, VERY bad ways!
LIBERATE WISCONSIN! LIBERATE AMERICA!
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