Speakers at an Oct. 26 meeting opposing COVID-19 vaccination mandates in Tulsa, Oklahoma, told aviation and aerospace workers to “hold their ground” and sue employers who fire them for being unvaccinated.
On Sept. 9, President Joe Biden announced sweeping vaccination measures that are focused on the federal government, the health care sector, and private businesses. Federal workers and federal contractors will be required to get a COVID-19 vaccine. Contractors have until Dec. 8 to get their employees vaccinated and can’t allow their employees to opt out.
The speakers provided those in attendance with guidance regarding the compulsory COVID-19 vaccinations and urged them to stand their ground and seek religious and medical exemptions from the vaccination.
“I submit to you this is a big game of chicken, and it’s waiting on you to blink,” Sherwood said, according to the Tulsa World.
“We believe that God made us in his image. We believe that God also made the immune system in his image, as well.”
He also stated that people “don’t have to die from COVID, and you can live in faith and you don’t have to live in fear.”
Sherwood noted that “we are not anti-medicine or anti-vaccine” but that “this situation has been rushed.”
“It’s been rushed and sped up to the point where research has not caught up with time and time has not caught up with research,” he said.
Stearman also urged audience members to seek religious or medical exemptions and to sue companies that fired workers, telling them that “the science does not make sense.”
“What we are facing right now is a spiritual battle. We are in a worldwide battle between good and evil,” she said.
Stearman encouraged the audience to “make them fire you all” and to sue employers on the grounds of religious and medical discrimination.
Sherwood and Stearman didn’t immediately respond to a request for additional comment.
James Williams, president of the United Aerospace Workers (UAW) Local 952, said he thinks the “government is overreaching” regarding the mandate.
UAW Local 952 and Transport Workers Union Local 514 represent workers at American Airlines-owned Tech Ops-Tulsa and Spirit AeroSystems, which are two of Tulsa’s largest employers.
Both companies have said they'll comply with the vaccine mandate, according to Tulsa World.
American Airlines told workers in an email on Oct. 6 that they have to be fully vaccinated by Nov. 24 or face termination, while Southwest Airlines also announced that it will require all of its 56,000 U.S. employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
Hundreds of Boeing Co. employees protested in Washington state earlier this month, after the company told workers that they must be vaccinated.
Delta Chief Executive Ed Bastian said earlier this month that more than 90 percent of the company’s workforce have been vaccinated against COVID-19 without enforcing Biden’s “divisive” vaccine mandate.