by Katherine Hamilton
United Airlines demands employees who are suing for firing them over their religious objections to the company’s coronavirus vaccine mandate must turn over their private communications with pastors or religious advisors related to the vaccine, court filings show.
The airline’s attorneys made the demand in the discovery phase of a lawsuit filed in September of 2021, in which eight United Airlines employees forced onto unpaid leave sued on behalf of 2,000-plus workers seeking exemptions from the company’s coronavirus vaccine mandate. The lawsuit alleges the company violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by discriminating against the employees based on their religious beliefs and medical conditions.
United Airlines notably had one of the strictest COVID vaccine mandates in the country for a private company, even compared to competing airlines. In August of 2021, the airline told its 67,000 U.S. employees that they would have to get vaccinated against the virus or face firing. United reported at the time that roughly 96 percent complied with the mandate, though several hundred who refused were fired. Approximately 2,200 employees received what the company called religious and medical “exemptions,” though that consisted of the company granting them what it called a “reasonable accommodation” by placing them on unpaid leave and stripping them of their medical benefits.
In other words, the “accommodation” of losing all their pay and benefits for up to six years meant they were terminated.
In addition to the loss of their income for several months before a federal court order got them back on the job while this lawsuit is ongoing, those employees, many of whom are self-professing Christians who objected to the vaccine because it was developed using aborted fetal tissue, have reported experiencing “mental anguish, financial and emotional distress.” Plaintiffs in the lawsuit alleged that they were dealing with highly adverse outcomes because of the “reasonable accommodation,” like risking homelessness and foregoing a spouse’s cancer treatment.