Our nation is standing on the edge of a crisis that involves several related factors. Many potential workers are staying out of the workforce. Shortages and backlogs of many goods and services are appearing. Notwithstanding Southwest’s representations to the public, the recent cancellations of Southwest Airlines flights might be a symptom of management problems. The fact that Southwest recently implemented pending OSHA Emergency Temporary Standards (ETS) indicates that many American workers may already be walking off the job and work stoppages seem imminent- even as the Biden Administration requests that Walmart and certain transportation and shipping services require their shorthanded crews work 24/7 to make room for ships and warehouses to unload goods. The work stoppages might be a harbinger of a profound new epidemic already being labeled Freedom Flu.
NASCAR fans and folks at NFL football games are spontaneously chanting obscenities directed at the President. Meanwhile, airline pilots and baggage handlers at South Airlines allegedly refused to come to work and labor stoppages are predicted in several industries including transportation and health. Many corporations are requiring that even employees and contractors who work remotely be vaccinated. The corporations that require vaccination are often dependent on federal subsidies or anticipating bailouts in order to stay solvent.
The employers’ justification for such “mandates” is that the ETS requires vaccination. However, the fact that all available vaccination doses are only authorized on an emergency basis means vaccine mandates based on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval violate federal law.
“Under the emergency use authorization, everyone has an option to accept or refuse the product. And that means every person, military and civilian. All of the mandates, from the military to the civilian population, are violating federal law,” according to Mathew Staver, chairman of Liberty Counsel, a Christian legal group.
OSHA has not published any emergency standards at this time. The Biden Administration realizes that most OSHA emergency standards have been rejected by the courts and apparently anticipates that if an ETS can be expected from OSHA at this time, it will certainly be unsuccessful when challenged in court. Only one ETS has survived in thirty years and toxic substances in the workplace- not viruses– are the basis for issuing standards on an emergency basis.
Thus, many employees and independent contractors, including those who telecommute and never leave their homes for work, are being forced to choose between their livelihoods and the freedom to follow conscience concerning health decisions. Despite the fact that the Biden Administration knows the ETS will be successfully challenged, Biden announced an emergency “Order” in a futile attempt to “buy time” by giving cover to corporations like Southwest that seek to curry favor with the Biden Administration. Thus, Pres. Biden and corporate America are compromising personal freedom and challenging the religious convictions of Americans who assert ethical and health objections to the mandates.
Many Catholics and Pro-Life Americans, for example, oppose vaccination because of the alleged use of fetal tissue obtained by abortion to create the experimental vaccines. The Pope has claimed that the use of aborted fetal tissue to produce subsequent generations of cells is too attenuated for the Catholic Church to take a stand against the vaccines. The Pope’s announcement leaves many Catholic workers without the necessary covering to claim a religious objection.
The requirement that workers submit vaccine documentation also raises red flags for Jewish people who will never forget how the Nazi regime required papers in order for German citizens to prove their eligibility to work or engage in other economic and civic activities.
Is an objection to employer-government mandated documents in order to work a personal objection or a religious objection for Jewish-American citizens who are not necessarily practicing Judaism? Just as the German National aka Lutheran Church, individual Evangelicals, Catholics and Jews compromised with the Third Reich, many denominations and church leaders are reluctant to oppose the Biden Administration. The Administration has taken to labeling Evangelicals, and other people of faith who stand up to tyranny on a number of issues, as dangerous conspiracy theorists on the Right. Speaking out can result in being targeted for investigation to determine whether you represent a threat of domestic terrorism.
That is how dictatorship arises. Suggesting that folks who honestly dissent might harm their fellow Americans is the road to lawless tyranny. These issues need to be brought home to employers who may not realize the close historical connection between state supported corporations and the Fascist police states that American business and political leaders admired so much prior to World War II.
Many lawyers already see the connection between loss of personal freedom and employer-mandated health policies. Judges are already issuing injunctions in order to provide due process for non-vaccinated employees who are at risk of being terminated before their cases can be heard. Before the cases get heard in court, many Americans will probably not be showing up for work. Expect the shortages in food, manufactured goods, and transportation services to get worse.
The Law Office of Mark Knapp PLLC 