A pilot is one of many unvaccinated United Airline employees who sent letters to the company's board of directors expressing "mental anguish, financial and emotional distress" after the company implemented a COVID vaccine mandate.
Potentially thousands of unvaccinated United Airlines employees have sent numerous letters to the organization's board of directors, sharing their plight following the implementation of their COVID vaccine mandate. The United Airlines COVID vaccine mandate differs from other airlines' mandates as workers who were provided with religious or medical exemptions were placed on indefinite unpaid leave and were no longer able to enjoy medical insurance coverage.
According to Breitbart, the United Airlines COVID vaccine mandate is in the midst of a class-action lawsuit filed by 2,000 who were forced to go on an unpaid leave because they refused to receive the COVID vaccine. In February, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in favor of unvaccinated United Airlines employees, saying that the airline's vaccine mandate inflicts "irreparable harm" because it "coerce[s] the plaintiffs into violating their religious convictions."
The ruling by the three-judge panel, which voted 2 to 1, also said, "That harm and that harm alone is irreparable and supports a preliminary injunction." The case was then sent back to District Court Judge Mark Pittman for further review.
Airline Employees 4 Health Freedom co-founder and experienced airline Captain Sherry Walker told Breitbart that her organization, which oversaw the campaign to flood the organization's board of directors with letters from unvaccinated United Airlines employees, said that she was "extremely happy that the Fifth [Circuit] has recognized the pain and suffering and the irreparable harm" the vaccine mandate has caused.
Sherry shared that her coalition's members made up of unvaccinated United Airlines employees "love their jobs" and "cannot wait to go back to work." She lamented that the company is "not quite aware of the dire straits" some of the employees have been going through, from "missing house payments for three and four months" and other financial struggles.
One example is an Orthodox Jewish pilot and his wife, who detailed his wife's struggle with conceiving. In his letter dated February 21, 2022, the pilot recounted how he and his wife have been married for 10 years and had trouble having children.
He said that in 2020, they were able to finally afford In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF), which resulted in an ectopic pregnancy and a m iscarriage. They wanted to try again, but because the pilot was placed on unpaid leave, they could no longer afford the IVF as the funds that they set aside for it are now being used to pay for current living costs. The pilot lamented that the "mental anguish, financial and emotional distress has been very tough to weather."
United Airlines however commented on the lawsuit, saying that "At present, none of our accommodated employees are required to remain on unpaid leave; they all have other alternatives," Lynwood Times reported. The company claims that "non-customer facing" employees still remain in their regular positions but are subjected to "masking and testing requirements." Meanwhile, customer service representatives were "transitioned to temporary assignments that do not require direct interaction with customers."
