United Steelworkers local unions at five Department of Energy sites are urging elected officials from their states to intercede on their behalf against President Joe Biden’s plans for mandatory vaccinations of federal contractor employees.
The Sept. 17 letter was sent to the governors in all five states: Gov. Brad Little (R) of Idaho, Gov. Mike DeWine (R) of Ohio, Gov.Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) of New Mexico, Gov. Andy Beshear (D) of Kentucky and Gov. Jay Inslee (D) of Washington. The letter also went to both members of the U.S. Senate from each state as well as members of the House of Representatives in the Congressional districts for each of the DOE sites.
“The majority of our members do not agree with mandatory vaccination” and believe any such rule should provide exemptions for medical or religious reasons, the letter reads.
USW Local 1-689 President Herman Potter said Wednesday he has not heard back from any of the elected officials targeted in the letter, although spokespersons for a couple of them did respond by email to Weapons Complex Monitor.
Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) issued a statement Sept. 20 backing a different labor union, Local 24, Hanford Firefighters, against “dictatorial policies” by Gov. Inslee that could force firefighters to either get vaccinated or be terminated Oct. 18. Firefighters are one of many groups targeted by a state mandate. “The nonsensical Biden-Inslee mandates fail to take into consideration the more-than-adequate safety protocols these workers are already following,” Newhouse said.
Also, an editorial posted online last Friday by Idaho’s governor, Little, said mandates are not the answer. “Idahoans do not like being bullied into submission by the federal government,” Little said.
In New Mexico, Nora Meyers Sackett, spokeswoman for Gov.Lujan Grisham, gave a full-throated defense of her boss’s aggressive stance on vaccination requirements. “New Mexico has been proud to conduct one of the nation’s most effective and efficient vaccination programs, doing everything in our power to ensure that New Mexicans are protected for COVID-19.”
Even with that effort, hospitals in southeast New Mexico, near the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, “have been stretched beyond capacity due to the high numbers of COVID-related hospitalizations in the area,” Meyers Sackett said.
But the union also said that past mandates stemming from federal government action have enabled contractors to dictate implementation details “that have historically cost our members millions of dollars in lost wages and retirement funds.”
For example, Potter said Monday his local is pursuing a grievance against remediation contractor Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth for halting contributions to 401-K retirement plans when workers were sent home last March as COVID-19 started to spread across the country. The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act passed by Congress said workers who could not telecommute would still get paid, but Fluor-BWXT did not interpret this to include employer contributions to the 401-K accounts.
“FBP [Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth] is working through the grievance process,” a contractor spokesman said in a Friday email “It is FBP policy to not comment on topics regarding our contract with the USW.”
“The government has not done a very good job of winning a large percentage of the public’s trust when it comes to vaccination,” according to the letter dated Sept. 17 from United Steelworkers (USW) locals at the Hanford Site in Washington state, the Idaho National Laboratory, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico, the Paducah Site in Kentucky and the Portsmouth Site in Ohio.
“For instance, the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention], nor our government credits natural immunity versus vaccination, which other countries merit as being equal to vaccination,” according to the letter addressed to the public officials.
The spokeswoman for New Mexico’s governor took issue with this. Meyers Sackett said “contrary to what is referenced [in the USW letter], the CDC is very clear that everyone eligible should be vaccinated against COVID-19, including those who previously had the virus.”
In addition to the Portsmouth local, other USW local unions that signed onto the letter were Local 12-369 at Hanford, Local 12-652 at the Idaho lab, Local 8-550 in Paducah and Local 12-9477 at WIPP.
