Amid reports that international travel will soon require a vaccine passport, former senior Nike employees accused the shoe company of unlawfully requiring them to submit to the COVID-19 vaccine without the proper authority.
“Having an injection inside one’s body has no bearing on the task performed by the plaintiffs and since the COVID 19 vaccines do not prevent infection or transmission, something Nike has acknowledged, it cannot plausibly claim that unvaccinated employees pose a direct threat to their coworkers,” wrote attorney Emerson Lenon in the 8-page complaint.
“The data we’re seeing from countries all over the world is that not only do the shots not prevent transmission or infection, but they actually increase hospitalization cases and death,” said Leslie Manookian, president of Health Freedom Defense Fund, which is helping the plaintiffs with their lawsuit against Nike.
Doug Kerkering, Wanda Rozwadowska, and Hannah Thibodo filed the suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon alleging battery and violations of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
All three earned six figures and had no record of discipline while working at Nike’s Beaverton corporate headquarters
Rozwadowska had been a 12-year employee when she submitted to Nike’s mandate. She subsequently developed an autoimmune reaction.
“Wanda had the threat of losing her job and her ability to pay to fend for her family and so she was forced to get it, coerced into getting it, and Oregon has very clear laws about not being touched unwantedly,” Manookian said.
Nike recently rescinded the mandate after having imposed it in October 2021.
“It reinforces that it was never necessary in the first place, and I suppose it makes the whole thing look like an immense overreaction,” Manookian told The Epoch Times.
Plaintiffs Kerkering and Thibodo allege that Nike acted with malice and reckless indifference to their civil rights in perceiving their unvaccinated status as being a physical disability.
Kerkering was a 31-year employee and Thibodo had worked in the Beaverton office for seven years.
“Nike has said that because unvaccinated individuals are different, they’re implying through their actions that those who are unvaccinated have inferior immunity or immune systems,” Manookian added.
“They therefore are discriminating against them.”
