Every American should be rooting for the plaintiffs suing United Airlines for violating the Civil Rights Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. About 2,000 employees were supposedly granted religious or medical accommodations to excuse them from taking the Covid vaccine (out of about 5,000 requests). But those “accommodations” came with harsh, discriminatory punishments.
United CEO Scott Kirby displayed a hostile attitude toward any employee who did not comply with his orders to get the Covid vaccine. By September 2021, all “reasonably accommodated” pilots, flight attendants, and “customer-facing” employees who declined the injection were stripped of their pay and their medical insurance. The process of discovery also revealed that other employees who hesitated to take the jabs were subjected to a deliberate campaign of workplace humiliation — under the guise of safety — in which they were required to undergo “purposely putative” masking and testing.
There’s a lot at stake in the outcome of this lawsuit. Especially critical is the plaintiffs’ motion last month to certify the case as a class action. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in February 2022 that the plaintiffs suffered “irreparable harm” from United Airlines’ policy of unpaid leave, its threats, and its coercive practices. But only if the suit proceeds as a class action can United truly be held accountable for the great harm it’s done to so many of its employees. Federal District Judge Mark Pittman will probably rule on that motion within the next couple of months.
Kirby apparently used every
