The Daily Signal - Employee Suspended From His Job After Refusing to Get Vaccinated Shares His Story

Episode Date: November 10, 2021

COVID-19 vaccine mandates are wreaking havoc across the country as employees are forced to get vaccinated or possibly risk losing their jobs. Employees' religion-based objections to vaccination are clashing with those mandates, and often, the mandate wins out. Hunter Creger was suspended from his job at a Colorado-based spacecraft launch service after he refused the vaccine on religious grounds. "It was awful," Creger explains. "These are people that I work for, and that I've developed a relationship with, and they're telling me that … . They walked me out the door. They had security walk me out the door because I didn't want to take the shot." Creger joins the show to share his story and to offer advice to others who find themselves in circumstances similar to his.  We also cover these stories: The Biden administration insists that mandating COVID-19 vaccines and testing for employees of larger companies is necessary to keep the public safe. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, signs legislation amending state law to make it more difficult for Illinoisans to refuse to be vaccinated. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra refuses to address GOP accusations that he violated federal conscience protections and worked at "the behest of the abortion lobby." Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal Podcasts for Wednesday, November 10th. I'm Mary Margaret Ollahan. And I'm Virginia Allen. COVID-19 vaccine mandates have caused ripples across the country as employees are forced to become vaccinated or possibly lose their jobs. Employees' religious beliefs surrounding vaccines are clashing with mandates. And oftentimes, the mandates are winning out. Hunter Krieger is a federal worker who was suspended from his job. after he refused the vaccine on religious grounds.

He joins the show today to share his story and offer advice to others who are going through the same thing. But before we get to Doug's conversation with Hunter, let's hit the top news stories of the day. In a late Monday filing, President Joe Biden's administration said that legally mandating COVID-19 vaccines and testing for larger companies is necessary to keep the public safe,

arguing that Republican states challenging law have not yet proven that their claims outweigh the harms of halting the mandate. The Fifth United States Circuit Court of Appeals had temporarily blocked Biden's mandate Saturday when three judges appointed by Republican presidents cited grave statutory and constitutional issues with the mandate. Biden's Department of Justice argued that stopping the mandate would likely cost dozens or even hundreds of lives per day. Illinois Governor J.B. Fritzker and Illinois Democrats have amended the state's constitution to make it more challenging for citizens to refuse to be vaccinated. The amendment changes the 1978 Health Care Right of Conscious Act. The act was originally passed to protect medical professionals who refuse to participate in certain medical procedures because of personal beliefs. Illinois citizens who do not want to be vaccinated, have leaned on the Act's legal protection. Several people have also cited the Act in lawsuits filed against vaccine mandates. The Act has allowed citizens to claim conscious, religious, or medical exemptions on health care-related issues. Now, Illinois lawmakers have voted largely along

party lines to remove conscientious objections from the Health Care Right of Conscious Act, making it harder for those who do not want to be vaccinated to claim an exemption. Fittsker signed the amendment on Monday, but the new law will not go into effect until June of 2022. Governor Fitzger said in a statement Monday that mass vaccines and testing requirements are life-saving measures that keep our workplaces and communities safe. Keeping workplaces safe is a high priority, and I applaud the General Assembly for for ensuring that the Health Care Right of Conscious Act is no longer wrongly used against institutions who are putting safety and science first.

The people of Illinois will still be able to claim religious or medical exemptions to the COVID-19 vaccine under the Health Care Right of Conscious Act. In August, Republican Senators called on Health and Human Services Secretary Javier Becerra to explain why his department encouraged the Department of Justice to drive. drop a lawsuit against a hospital that had forced a nurse to assist with an abortion against her will. The Daily Signal obtained a letter that Bacera finally sent to Republicans last week. Though Bacera failed to explain why the DOJ dropped the lawsuit or to answer any of the Republicans' questions, he promised that HHS remains committed to the enforcement of all its legal authorities, including statutes which protect the exercise of conscience and religious freedom,

and we appreciate having the benefit of your views on this matter. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, the Republican senator who led the letter to Piscera, told the daily signal, Javier Abacera is too busy protecting hospitals that violate the rights of their nurses to give a straight answer. The Biden administration needs to answer for why its health secretary is sabotaging federal conscience protection laws. Now stay tuned for Doug's conversation with Hunter Crager, a federal employee who was suspended after he refused the COVID-19 vaccine on relation. just grounds. My name is Claire Marker. I'm Jonathan Ski. And I'm Natasha Tuneowski. And we're an entrance at the Heritage Foundation. The Heritage Foundation Young Leaders Intern Program gives college students and recent graduates the opportunity to work for America's

leading conservative think tank. Intern opportunities span from research and writing to filming and editing videos, creating social media content, organizing heritage events, and much, much more. I'm Plomwich Cohn, and this semester I'm interning in Heritage's Communication Department, and every day I get hands-on experience in audio and video editing. Every Heritage intern has the opportunity to participate in weekly first principal seminars and policy briefings. You will hear from leading experts on the big issues facing America today. The Heritage Foundation offers housing for all interns right in the center of Washington, D.C., and the best part, it's a paid internship.

So if you want to apply for next semester's program, visit heritage.org. Click on About Heritage at the top of the page and then click Careers. You'll find the link for the Young Leaders Program there with all the instructions on how you can apply today. Our guest today is Hunter Krieger, a federal worker with United Launch Alliance, a Colorado-based spacecraft launch service who was suspended from his job after he refused to be vaccinated against COVID due to his religious beliefs. Hunter, thank you so much for coming. Hey, how's it going? Good.

Why don't we start at the beginning of this story? When did United Launch Alliance announce a COVID-19 vaccine mandate, and then what was the reason given for the mandate? So they mandated it at the end of August, and the reasoning for it was for the health and safety of all employees that are working for and with United Launch Alliance. Okay, so they basically started this a little while ago, and then it was given a health and safety reason. And this wasn't a government mandate. It wasn't that they had to be in compliance with the government. This was before all of this came out. Yes.

And their deadline was separate from the federal guidelines. They actually had it a lot sooner than the original December 8th deadline that was in place when they first implemented the mandate. Okay. And to give our listeners a little more context about maybe your work with United Launch Alliance, what did you do before you were suspended and how many years had you been with the business? So I was a laser weld technician, and I was there for going on about two years, a little under two years. Okay. So you had been with the company for a while. This wasn't, you were a new hire, and they were sort of saying like, okay, you need to get vaccinated and you need to leave. Yes. Yeah. Okay. How did you feel when they initially told you that you needed to be vaccinated? Did you consider getting vaccinated at the start?

No, no, absolutely not. It was never an option for me. But to be honest, I originally, I wasn't, too worried about it because I was like, well, you know, it's not a good thing that they're doing. I don't like it, but I haven't. I have a religious exemption. You know, I'm a Catholic, so I, you know, I'm exempt from having to get it. So I'm sitting there thinking, I'm like, well, you know, it sucks, but I'm probably not going to have to get it. But it wasn't until the week before the mandate that we found out that they had denied

all religious exemptions across the board. Yeah, one of the things that I find interesting about these types of stories is the federal mandate from the Biden administration gives another option, right? So there's the idea that you can either get tested regularly, weekly for COVID-19 and you have to provide a negative test or you have to get vaccinated. Did your company, did the United Launch Alliance offer that option or was it a strict you must get vaccinated or you have to leave? It was, you have to get vaccinated or you have to leave. They didn't, they didn't leave it up to any sort of option whatsoever. And what was their justification specifically for, or I guess did they give a justification for saying it has to be a vaccine?

Because even the federal mandate says you're allowed to get tested regularly. Well, they didn't really give much of a reason why. I mean, they said that it was, like I said, it was for the health and safety. of all employees. But, I mean, they, I don't know, it wasn't, they didn't give you much of an option whatsoever. Okay. One of the things we talked about at the top of the show was that you had applied for a religious exemption and were denied.

And it sounds like from what you're saying, this was a religious exemption that was denied across the board. A lot of other people were asking for that. On what grounds did you ask for a religious exemption? So I'm a Roman Catholic. So I don't want to believe in the fetal cell lines that are used in the vaccine that developed it for, you know, the Pfizer and the Moderna or the ones that are actually in the vaccine for the Johnson and Johnson. Okay. So you have a moral disagreement with how the vaccine was produced.

Yeah. And, you know, not only that, but it's like I hate the term exemption. You know, I hate that it's come down to, you know, I have to have an excuse to not do something that the government wants me to do or the company wants me to do. I feel like the fact that I'm saying, no, I don't want to get it should be enough. I hate because the whole exemption process, it legitimizes the system. And it really bugs me that I have to ask permission to not put something in my body, pretty much. One of the things that seems to be a recurring theme with this story is that the United Launch Alliance doesn't really give anything as an explanation other than health and safety.

Was there a justification that they gave for the denial of religious exemptions across the board? They said it would be an undue hardship on the company because there were so many people who applied for exemption. So they're saying that it was going to be too much work for the company to fill out all paperwork to make all or to take to hand out exemption but what I don't understand is like how how difficult is that I know of several aerospace companies in the area that are just checking a box and saying all right you're exempt you're good you know there's no no other process required so I you know they're there they're happening to go to the process of replacing all the people that they lost

because of all this I don't understand how that's any less of an undue hardship on the company than just, you know, checking a box and saying, all right, this person's exempt from getting vaccinated. So they told you that it was undue hardship on the company. That was the justification given it would be too difficult to fill out the paperwork. Yes, that was really, I mean, that was it. Interesting. So in response to your, in the vaccine mandate, you were the leader of a protest movement at United Launch Alliance about the vaccine mandate. Can you tell me a little bit more about the protests?

Well, so we found out Friday before the deadline that everybody had been denied. And I think there were like maybe a handful of medical exemptions that were approved, and a lot of them were temporary for like the next six months or so. But as you can understand, there was a lot of people that were very upset. So, you know, I kind of got together and I started a telegram channel. I said, all right, we need to do something. We need to, you know, because they're trying to take our livelihoods away from us. So, you know, this was something that I was very open with.

I, you know, made sure that we weren't doing anything wrong. You know, we were taking approved vacation, approved PTO and all that stuff. And I laid out the Monday and the Tuesday of the week of the mandate. And we just stood outside and we protested. You know, we had signs made. The media came out. They talked to us. but I came in on Wednesday and I walked through the door and my manager's like, hey, Hunter, you're not allowed to touch hardware until you have a meeting with HR.

I was like, all right. So, you know, I went in and I had my meeting and they told me that I was suspended pending an investigation. So I was there with my union representation and we're trying to provide them like, hey, why am I being suspended? And they wouldn't tell me. And we're like, is it because I organized the protest? And they said no. So they would not, and they still haven't given me an explanation why I was suspended. So the suspension then wasn't explicitly because of your refusal to get vaccinated.

It sounds like there's sort of some, it's not entirely clear what the justification given for your suspension is. Yeah, and they still haven't given me an explanation. Okay. I think it was because of my role that I played in, you know, organizing the protest. How many of your coworkers would you say were with you at this protest? Would you say it was a large amount of your coworkers? Would you say it was half? How many people do you think were there?

We were out there at several different times over the course of those couple days. I say at any given time, 25 max out there in front of the building. Okay. What were you hearing from some of these people? Was there a justification similar to yours in the sense that they had a moral problem with the vaccine? Was it more just, I don't want the business telling me what to do? What was some of the justification that your colleagues were saying that they had a problem with the vaccine mandate? It was really mixed.

There was a lot of people who didn't want to take it for religious reasons. There was a lot of people that didn't want to take it because they were afraid of the vaccine. They were afraid of what it was going to do with their bodies. and there were people out there that were just like, well, I don't like what's happening right now. There were vaccinated people out there with us supporting us. And they said, you know, I don't like that this is happening to you guys. I don't like the direction that this is going. I don't like the fact that the company is, you know, threatening you with this vaccine,

basically saying if you don't get it, you're fired. I don't like the precedent for that setting. There was a lot of people out there that, you know, had that belief. Could you maybe walk me through your feeling? You're in the office and they're telling you that you would be suspended. What did you feel when they told you that you would be suspended? It was awful. I mean, you know, these are people that I work for and that, you know, I've developed a relationship with.

And they're telling me that, you know, they walked me out the door. They had security walk me out the door because of, because I didn't want to take the shot. And it was like, you know, it was like being betrayed, you know, because I'm put in so much work at the company. And, you know, I've dedicated a huge amount of my life to the work that I do. And that was the most amount of respect that they could give me, was to, you know, basically say, all right, security wall came out. Is there any chance you might get your job back? Do you feel like that's on the table at all? war? Well, there are some promising movements in the state of Alabama that are, you know,

there are changes in the law that are better, that would hopefully, you know, allow me to go back to work at ULA. But to be honest with you, at this point, it's left such a bad taste in my mouth that I don't want to work for somebody that would treat me like that. I guess, yeah, I'm curious about sort of the future now that you've, one, been suspended by this business, and then two, it seems like the way that they suspended you has left a negative impression on the business in your mind. What does this mean for you in the future? I mean, where do you go from here? What is your situation now that you are suspended from this job and you're currently, I'm assuming, looking for employment?

Yeah, you know, I'm, I've got my, you know, I've got my fingers out in several different things right now. I've got interviews this week and in a lot of the places that I've talked to. are they basically said, all right, well, we know that you don't want to get vaccinated. So if we decide to bring you on, you know, we're going to put you through the exemption process. And they're just open about it. They're like, all right, well, if you want the job, you're going to have to be exempt. And I'm okay, sounds good. For whatever reason, ULA just refuses to give out exemptions when there are plenty of other companies that are willing to, you know, let their employees be exempt from something that they don't want to do.

Are you finding that there are a lot of businesses in the area that are willing to do it, that the United Launch Alliance is sort of an outlier? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I have friends that work at other federal contractors that basically just walk into HR and they say, hey, here's my exemption paperwork, and they say, all right, check the box, all right, you're good. Interesting. How, I guess, in terms of your mental state, how have you been holding up now that you were suspended? I mean, I can imagine that that would be kind of rough mentally to have worked for a business for two years and then be escorted out the door.

Well, you know, it's not been horrible. You know, it's not like I'm unable to cope with it, but it's definitely, I mean, it's not a good situation to be in, you know, because they've put me, I mean, I don't have a paycheck coming anymore. But, you know, it's, it's given me an opportunity to stand up for what I believe in. You know, it's given me an opportunity to say, you know, all right, this is enough, it's enough. I'm not going to play this game anymore. And that alone has made this whole situation bearable because not a lot of people can say that they honestly had a chance to stand up for what they believe in and done it. Have you been in contact with any of your coworkers or who've experienced things similarly to you who've been suspended for this, for refusing the vaccine? how have they handled the situation?

Oh, well, I've got one of the guys that I work with or used to work with. And, you know, he's the breadwinner in the family. He's got two little girls and his wife doesn't work. And, you know, he was right there with me. He decided he's like, I'm not going to get the shot because I think it's wrong. And, you know, I've been in contact with him. And, you know, he's doing okay. He's thinking about starting his own business.

And it's, if anything, it's like a weight. has been lifted off of his shoulders because now he's not working for a company that is going to try and dictate personal aspects of life. I want to briefly touch on your experience with the pandemic. A lot of people, some people were able to go and work from home for the most part, and some people were forced to go into their office or their workplace during the pandemic. Were you able to work at, I guess, were you able to work at home at all during, the pandemic, or did you have to go into your workplace during the pandemic?

No, I'm a technician. We had to be there. We had to be the ones to go and actually assemble the rockets that we build. And, you know, I remember at the beginning of the pandemic, the CEO of the company, Tori Bruno, he sent out a email to everybody and had them print it off, basically saying, you know, if you, in the first two weeks of the pandemic, when, you know, people were worried about. being caught out of their house during quarantine and stuff like that. Basically, it's a piece of paper saying that if you get stopped by any law enforcement, given this piece of paper saying that you are essential to not only the company, but national defense because of what you're working on.

So, I mean, that really wasn't that long ago. I mean, it was a little over a year ago where I was absolutely essential to national defense. and now, you know, don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out. That's what it's come down to. So now that we are in this place where it seems like a vaccine, well, I guess the federal vaccine mandate has officially been announced. And it seems like a lot of businesses such as United Launch Alliance are doing employer-based mandates that are separate from the federal mandate. What do you think will happen if these types of mandates remain in place? Nothing good. I mean, it's one thing, it's that kind of libertarian idea of, you know, well, you know, as long as the government isn't infringing on my right, you know, companies are allowed to do whatever they want.

Companies can infringe on your rights just as much, if not more than the federal government can. So at what point do we take accountability for how we rule our lives? You know, who, what right has God given these multinational corporations? to dictate what we put in our body. You know, I mean, what's the next step? You know, what happens when, you know, you're a female employee and they make you go on birth control or something because they don't want you having any kids? Well, is that so hard to think of now?

Because that's the road that we're on. As we wrap up this interview, I'm curious if you have any advice for people like you who are either in danger of losing their jobs who have already lost their jobs due to the vaccine mandate. What advice can you offer them? Don't give up. You have to stand up for what you believe in.

I mean, any rights that you give up today are rights that your kids will never see. So to all the people that have taken the stand, I commend you. And all those people who are worried about maybe losing their job or anything, there are a lot worse things in this world to lose than your job. And somebody will always hire you. Good stuff to think about. That was Hunter Krieger, a federal worker with United Launch Alliance, a Colorado-based spacecraft launch service

who was suspended from his job after he refused to be vaccinated against COVID due to his religious beliefs. Hunter, thank you so much again for your time. Really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening to the Daily Signal podcast.

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