Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman has attacked United Airlines’ vaccine mandate, but upheld it. The ruling, which declines to block United’s vaccine policy with a preliminary injunction, allows United to proceed with placing employees who have obtained medical or religious exemptions on unpaid leave.
Judge Upholds United Airlines’ Vaccine Mandate
In a ruling by Pittman, the Fort Worth, Texas-based judge rejected the argument that United employees are placed in an “impossible position” by being asked to choose between taking the COVID-19 vaccine or unpaid leave. Instead, he held:
- United’s human resources policy was up to United
- No employee was forced to accept a vaccine
Even in upholding the vaccine mandate, though, Pittman noted he was “disturbed” by it and castigated United for its lack of tolerance:
“United’s seemingly calloused approach to its employees’ deeply personal concerns with injecting a foreign substance into their bodies. This is especially true since United stated on the record that 99% of its employees are vaccinated and that there is virtually no chance to transmit COVID-19 on its planes.
“United has thus instituted a regime in which nothing short of complete compliance with its commands will suffice. Any dissenters will be given the trifling pittance of indefinite unpaid leave. United’s mandate thus reflects an apathy, if not antipathy, for many of its employees’ concerns and a dearth of toleration for those expressing diversity of thought.”
United praised the ruling, with a spokesperson telling Live and Let’s Fly:
We’re pleased with the court’s decision today. We know that the best way to keep everyone as safe as we can is for everyone to get vaccinated, as nearly all United employees have chosen to do. We are working to identify non-customer facing roles where accommodated employees can apply and continue working until it is safe for them to their return to their current positions.
United says it will use “science” to determine when to bring back these customer-facing employees to their original roles and in the meantime will try to find non-customer facing roles for impacted employees.
This was not a ruling on the ultimate legal validity of the vaccine mandate but rather on whether United frontline employees would suffer “irreparable harm” if the vaccine mandate went into effect.
CONCLUSION
A conservative Texas judge has upheld United’s vaccine mandate, at least for now. The plaintiffs are considering an appeal to the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, but for now United’s plan to put unvaccinated pilots, flight attendants, and other customer-facing employees on unpaid leave can proceed.
Now end the mask mandate creepy, sleepy, flatulent Joe!!
What’s funny is that this is actually a conservative position, rather than a MAGA cult idea. Time was that you’d get well reasoned positions from the right wing. Once the cult fever ends, we can hope the national discourse will be improved
Don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon…moderate Repub’s being excommunicated one at a time from the party 5 years and counting now
I like the sentiment but I think we are too far gone. It would require a great leader and a great statesman/stateswoman. I don’t see any out there- not even close…..
Mask up, roll up, and vax up, bitches!
Not until I can sue a company for any potential issues that might arise, like former Vioxx users.
Vax should always be a personal choice, not a mandate by some brain-dead gastronomically deficient dictator
Your employment is also a personal choice. Don’t like the rules? Free to go elsewhere
Sorr7y, but if you want to live in society, you have to play by the rules.. and you don’t have free choice to spread infectious and deadly disease to others. Vaccines haven’t been a personal choice (think measles, polio, etc) required to go to school.
Sometimes it seems like anti-vax “personal choicers” just haven’t grown up beyond teenagers and want to rebel … no matter how stupid their choices are.
You evidently don’t understand the difference between “sterile” and “non sterile” vaccines. The Measles and Polio vax are sterile and keep you from getting or transmitting those diseases. The Covid shot is non sterile and does not prevent either of those. You can still get Covid and transmit it. So your comparison is non sequitur. If it actually immunized you against the virus that would be different. In addition, There have been thousands of very adverse effects and even deaths from this shot. Eric Clapton is just one high profile person that had major side effects. To say people won’t take this shot due to political leanings may be true for some, but the majority of people have done research and decided that the risk of the shot is greater than the virus, or they have already had the virus which gives them mush broader and long lasting immunity than these shots do. I’m fine with anyone who wants to take the shots, but if you don’t, for whatever reason, you shouldn’t have to.
You know its a preliminary injunction, right? It is not a ruling on the merits, so calling it “upheld” is incorrect. The judge just decline to issue the preliminary injunction. Also, the judge could later reverse his decision and rule against United Airlines.
And did you mean to use “distributed” ? I don’t think that word appears in the opinion.
I do. I added a sentence to make that even clearer.
Re: typo – mine, not Judge Pittman’s.
Let’s Go Brandon!!!
Are you part of the LGBFJB+ community?
Who is Brandon, and where is he going? And why?
It’s unfair for the unvax’d staff to rest on the laurels and hard work of their colleagues who are vaccinated. I can’t wait till they get hospitalized so I everybody can do the “I told you so” dance.
We are required to be vaxed for multiple diseases. The amount of data supporting the vaccine as safe and reliable astronomically overwhelms any of the side effects.
Why some people have this desire to lose their livelihoods over a common vaccine is ridiculous.
The mRNA vaccines are novel. Until very recently, all drug makers failed at producing mRNA products because of their toxicity. Anyone who tells you that they are known to be safe is a liar as there are ZERO long-term studies done. Even one of Fauci’s staff is unvaccinated. Most folx will probably be fine after getting vaccinated. That doesn’t mean the vaccines should have been rolled out en masse as they have been. The handling of the pandemic has shown that government officials and the public health establishment are incapable of performing cost-benefit analyses.
https://www.statnews.com/2017/01/10/moderna-trouble-mrna/
https://www.wsj.com/articles/vaccine-mandate-debate-makes-it-to-top-federal-research-agency-11636286400
I think Conservatives are more against the idea that Brandon is forcing the mandate on private businesses , instead of businesses themselves dictating whether or not they should mandate their employees to be vaxxed. From that angle, then yes United’s mandate is legal and should be upheld
Private businesses should be able to discriminate as they please. Real conservatives would work to tear down the Civil Rights Act. It is the skeleton key the left uses to impose its insanity on the rest of the country through the power of the federal government.
I wonder if you would feel that way if you were discriminated against? Probably not.
Your presumptuousness knows no bounds. I have been discriminated against. Pay me, white supremacist!
Is your mind too feeble to understand that the state getting involved in regulating private behavior might be worse than the objectionable behavior itself?
The challenge is that its not just United that bears the costs of anti-vaxxer stupidity, but their customers and the general population at large. Deltas approach of a large health surcharge seemed to have worked. I would be all for “double the costs of health care” for the anti-vaxxers. They and they alone should pay and pay dearly for their ignorance.
Advanced age and obesity are the most common factors in COVID-19 deaths. Old age can’t be helped. Obesity can. Why shouldn’t fat folx pay dearly for their refusal to maintain healthy weights? Where would the panic over this pandemic be without their deaths?
Who is Brandon?
There are those who complain that school districts require students to be vaccinated. The issue was settled by the US Supreme Court a century ago. There are those who complain that OHSA was invoked to ban smoking in the workplace, restaurant, etc. Too bad — the ban is legal.
Oh, but COVID vaccines are somehow different. My rights, my rights.
Just get the shot, let the nano-bots take over your brain, and start eating babies . . . but you still get to choose the sauce.
COVID-19 vaccines ARE different. Certainly the mRNA vaccines are novel and have no long term safety studies. Vaccines mandated in previous generations were never imposed on the population so quickly and all at once (not to mention that they were much more effective). The current vaccines were under EUA only until recently. Of course, the EUA versions are still being used and, while they don’t protect folx from infection, they do protect the manufacturers from liability. My body, my choice, amirite?
Oh just come out already and say you are Pro Plague.
I do not have deny that COVID-19 can be deadly to think that the public health establishment is being dishonest and reckless. You have demonstrated that you are incapable of rational thought. I guess you must not be white (according to anti-racist theology). Why is it that progressives are so insistent on imposing their unproven beliefs on others? I don’t care if you get vaccinated. Live in fear if you want. Just don’t force others to follow in your lunatic footsteps.