The Daily Signal - How This Pilot Fights United Airlines' Vaccine Mandate

Episode Date: December 21, 2021

As private businesses mandate COVID-19 vaccinations for their employees under pressure from the Biden administration, employees are banding together to make their displeasure known. In the airline industry, United Airlines pilot Sherry Walker and her group, Airline Employees 4 Health Freedom, are pushing back against what they view as an overreach by the industry to control their health and violate their religious freedom. "I cannot wake up some day in 10 years and my kid turns to me and says, 'Mom, you had a chance to fix this and you didn't and you left me this mess,'" Walker says. "So I'm going to fight till the end for my religious faith and that of my coworkers. And if that means that I'm done flying, I guess I have a bigger fight God put in front of me." Walker joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to talk about her efforts to push back against vaccine mandates in the airline industry. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We'd love to talk, business. This is the Daily Signal podcast for Tuesday, December 21st. I'm Virginia Allen. And I'm Doug Blair. As private businesses continue to mandate COVID vaccines, groups of employees have banded together to make their displeasure known. In the airline industry, United Airlines pilot Sherry Walker and her group Airline Employees for Health Freedom are pushing back against what they view as an overreach by

the industry to control their health. Sherry joins the show to talk about her efforts and to push back against vaccine mandates in the airline industry. Because it is the week of Christmas. We are taking a break from news headlines throughout this week. But in the spirit of the holiday, we're going to share some Christmas trivia on the show this week. All right. So, Doug, do you think you're ready?

I am so ready. Okay, great. All right. So first question, which country started the tradition of putting up a Christmas tree? So I'm going to try and logic this one out. I think it's somewhere in Europe because... That logic follows. Yes.

That tracks. That tracks. So I think probably either Germany or Norway. Okay. You have to pick one. I have to pick one. You have to pick one. A moment of truth. Let's go with, let's do Germany. Yes, you're correct. Well done. All right. Question number two. What was the highest grossing Christmas movie of all time? So I think it's an old one. And this always also goes into debate of like what's actually a Christmas movie and like what is in a Christmas movie. Sure. Sure.

So if I'm not mistaken, is it Miracle on 34th Street? That's a good guess. It's actually home alone though. Interesting. I know. Yeah. A little McAllister kit. Now, do you think that is a Christmas movie?

Yes, definitely. Some people debate that. I think it's a Christmas movie too, but I have heard people say it's not. Oh, well, I mean, I guess, well, no, I mean, I feel like it really is solidly a Christmas movie. Like, it gets into the spirit of Christmas and why we celebrate and it's all about family and it's obviously set at Christmas time, which is the argument that everyone makes for...

Die hard. Exactly, for die hard. That it's a Christmas movie because it's set at Christmas time. I will debate that. That's not a Christmas movie. I think if it was a Christmas movie, it would be the most out of the holiday season Christmas movie ever. I do like it.

It's a great movie. All right. Let's do our final trivia question for today. What are two of the most popular names for Santa Claus? Let's go with Chris Cringle and St. Nicholas. Correct. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Well done, Doug. All right, let's go ahead and get to Doug's conversation with Sherry Walker.

My guest today is Sherry Walker, a pilot for United Airlines and co-founder of airline employees for Health Freedom, an organization formed to counter COVID-19 vaccination mandates in the airline industry. Sherry, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me today. Of course, it's a pleasure. Sure. Let's start with the lawsuit that your group has filed against United to fight back against this mandate. Can you tell us a little bit more about that lawsuit and what you're hoping to achieve from it? Sure. When our CEO on August 6 announced the mandate, it pretty much ripped through the company to a point where everyone went into panic because it was strictly a marketing ploy, we believe, couched in fear.

So banded together about 2,000 of us and hired Sharon Jaffe, a constitutional and faith-based defender of our freedoms. And they had filed mid-September a complaint in the Northern District in Texas. We have six named litigants. We were successful in a couple TROs. We went for the preliminary injunction. And as much as Judge Mark Pittman wanted to give us that at the time, the definitions of irreparable harm were longstanding. believe that Love v. City of Dallas sets us up beautifully. Judge Pittman had some reservation, so he told us he invited us in our ruling to go ask his bosses at the 5th. So we filed an

emergency motion for a junction while we're in appeal, and that was turned down. But they did grant us expedited status, and they have since put us on the schedule for January 3rd, although I'm not sure that that date will hold. That expedited merits-based claim will then be heard. The beauty of what happened when we got the denial on the emergency injunction was the accompanying opinion of Judge Ho. And if we take a look at Judge Ho's writing, it's very strong language, and it backs up what the court produced in the BTR case

a couple weeks ago, and it actually made the jump from a public entity like OSHA to the private entity of United Airlines. So we're very thankful for Judge Ho's opinion. Now, United Airlines was one of the first airlines to mandate vaccinations for its employees. As somebody who has been flying with United, how did you feel when you'd been told that you needed to get vaccinated or you would lose your job? Well, actually, we felt pretty betrayed. Interestingly enough, I didn't hear it from my boss. I heard it on CMBC that morning.

So the press was more important, I think, than his own employees. Wow. Yeah, it was pretty sad. But then later on within another week or two, the tapes are up on our YouTube channel, AE4HF.org, and we have some links to the video. But in a flight operations meeting, he basically said,

anyone who wants to exercise their religious liberties, they can go look for another job because he refuses to honor that. So we're pretty sure. And Judge Pittman wrote in his opinion that it was all pretextual safety claims that really are nothing more than a marketing campaign to be the first fully vaccinated. That is something I wanted to follow up on. On your website, you say marketing was the main driver for this mandate. And you write, why else would the CEO ground almost 400 of its most experienced pilots

impose draconian and retaliatory policies on 2,000 of its most loyal employees and attempt to pit vaccinated co-workers against unvaccinated. So, I mean, like, what about this is about marketing? It's to say that they're the first ones vaccinated and that looks better. Like, what do you mean by that? Well, within a day or so, as I'm also a frequent flyer at United and do purchase tickets on our airline, I received an email from the frequent flyer department explaining how the holiday season is going to be the best ever that I would be flying on a hundred percent vaccinated

airline and I should take comfort in that. So we believe basically what was heard in trial as well by the judge is that this, while he claims safety, that this is really a marketing point. And I say that because if it were really about safety, and Mr. Kirby is not necessarily talking about the safety of the flying public, he's talking about the safety of his own employees. Like he knows more about my health than I do. But he's worried about my safety. If it were really about that, then he would not let pilots from other airlines

who do not have vaccine mandates right in my cockpit jump seat. He would be worried about all the employees worldwide, like the London-based flight attendants who do not have to have this mandate. So we don't understand where he's saying it's for our own good, basically. Now, you mentioned at the top a little bit

that there were no religious exemptions granted by United. Is that something that's still the case? There's no moral or religious exemption that you can apply for to get out of getting vaccinated with United? No, we were allowed to apply for that. It was just a very onerous process. And in fact, I would argue that it was all the stacked deck to ensure that you didn't get to exercise your rights.

So in violation of Title VII, they immediately said you had to have a letter from your pastor. Well, that is not true. So they backed off on that. And then they added other onerous request. They started with a, once you send it to a request, you would get like a list of seven questions back. Based on your faith, one of the questions was, have you ever taken an aspirin? Well, I suppose they're trying to make the jump between research.

I'm not sure. But eventually the onerous questions were dropped. And it went down to citing a third party letter that could attest to your faith. Of course, a lot of people thought that meant their pastor, and they fell out of the process because of the mere three-day window. So everything was pretty much stacked against us. At United Airlines, you had to have your request for honoring your faith in by August 31. And I argue all along, what happens to the person who finds God on September 1? They no longer have Title VII rights at United Airlines.

So the process was a stacked deck to ensure that as few of people as possible receive. accommodations. It sounds like from what you're saying there was this idea that they were enforcing the letter of the law where they were allowing the exemptions to be filed but they were trying to make it as difficult as possible to actually get an exemption. Yes sir and then the very few who did get exemptions now are facing what United considers and this was the basis for our lawsuit what is a reasonable accommodation in their mind it is indefinite unpaid leave okay that is that to us is irreparable harm.

It wouldn't be so bad if we could all get jobs. But just to ensure that the pain is, you know, final, they've said, well, we're going to keep you as active status employees. Well, what does that mean? Well, it means that I now cannot go seek employment in any aviation industry without approval of the airline, and they're not granting it for conflict of interest reasons. They're saying, because you're an active employee,

you cannot, you don't have a qualified lifestyle. style change so you cannot have an emergency access to your 401k. So we have people with hundreds of thousands of dollars in retirement funds saved up that will probably have to declare bankruptcy. So in addition as an active employee, but you're on unpaid leave, you can't seek unemployment benefits. And we've had some people who've tried to refinance their house in a cash out. And the refinance companies are saying, well, no, you're on leave, so you have no income,

so we can't give you a refi. So they're not content on just putting us out of work. They want to destroy us. And we believe it's because of our faith. Faced with these very obviously horrible circumstances, how has United tried to save face or responded to these stories? I mean, I can't imagine a company would want to keep this type of bad press going. So what is their justification for this? They don't have any.

They have just tried to ignore us, erase us. Most of our coworkers do not even know we exist. We're fighting hard to get our message out, but this multinational global just thinks that they can run roughshod over its employees, and we're not going to stand for it anymore. So we're standing up. Now, you mentioned that some of your coworkers don't know about you guys. Have you found that that's true even in the sense of like they just don't know or they're not on board with you? How have coworkers that have heard about your organization respond to the organization? Well, a lot of people, unfortunately, I would say drink the Kool-Aid.

We've had a lot of folks in our organization who have been discriminated against on social media. They've been retaliated against, stocked, whatever you want to call it, in the social media world. But our CEO comes out and says a couple weeks back that it doesn't matter, nobody wants to fly with those people who are unvaccinated. anyway. Well, when that hit the press, within hours, we had hundreds of letters from co-workers who said, we don't care. We'll fly with you. We know the vaccine protects us. So we're all right. And we would like to, you know, we didn't even know you existed out here. So we've been able to do some fundraising and get some word out from all the folks that are sympathetic, but there is a large contingency that are just vile to some of our members.

One of the things that really struck me as I was reading your website is that there is this idea of people who were scared to lose your jobs. And it sounds like that's something that a lot of people were going through or losing their retirement benefits or all of these pensions that they'd work for. They were scared of losing these things, that they went against their religious beliefs or their moral beliefs and they received the vaccine. Have you found that there are a lot of people coming to you with that story and saying, I don't know what to do? I went against my religious faith. I went against my moral beliefs. How do I deal with this? Well, I would start back first.

Again, the deck was stacked. So the pressure was put on everyone from the union members to management to get these people vaccinated. And I've had numerous phone calls of people in tears saying I violated my faith. I don't know what to do. Or I even had one person most recently that they were looking at suicide. And it's out there and we're doing everything we can to get people to help. But it is really unbelievable the lack of human empathy and an interactive process whereby you're supposed to be able to say, well, okay, I'll get you a letter, but I'm on a three-day trip right now. I can't get home and get it.

Too bad, they canceled your request. So we're just not sure what to do with that. But right now we're helping everybody. We're 2,000 strong warriors who are leaning on each other in our faith. What is airline employees for health freedom doing? So what are some of the things that we can point to as this is an action taken by the organization to help employees who are dealing with the aftermath of these mandates? Well, interestingly enough, our mission kind of changes by the day.

Every time United throws a wrench at us, we react. I have an incredible group about 20 core volunteers. We have one person who, at the beginning, helped folks with questions regarding writing their religious exemptions and we moved on toward the EEOC complaint so I have an entire department now that specializes in helping people file their EEOC complaints if they have questions in the interview process and then we track all their filings we have now a department for terminations so anytime someone is called in for a termination hearing a lot of terminations on technicalities and

they don't want the majority of us out on unpaid leave they'd rather just get us off the payroll or off the list so there's been a lot of that my terminations department. She's got some really broad shoulders. She listens to all the terrible stories. So then, of course, there's those of us that are working with the lawsuit in the case. So everybody is a volunteer. Everybody's stepped up into a role that fits them best. And tomorrow, if they throw us up at us, we'll find a volunteer that'll help specialize in that. And right now, we're working with people through the holidays. Depression is hitting. Families are struggling. So as a need arises, we support the 2,000 people in the lawsuit.

Now, we were talking about for the show, and it sounds like you have some pretty strong allies in Congress. Could you tell us what's happening on that end? Sure. The Commerce Committee has a meeting in the Senate. We looked at the ranking members and the folks that were friendly to our cause and tried to help present our people's case. One of our Texas constituents had reached out to Senator Cruz's office, and he was kind enough to listen to her story. the CEOs of three of the major airlines, I believe one minor and the head of the flight at St. Union, will be in Congress answering for, I believe the discussion is regarding the shortages

of employees in the airline industry as we approach the holiday season after receiving, in the case of United Airlines, $7.5 billion in taxpayer money in the form of CARES relief. Well, Mr. Kirby, if you're short employees, I know where there are 2,000 ready to go to work tomorrow. So one of our constituents who was terminated was able to tell her story to Senator Cruz. And we've got strong allies in Senator Johnson's office, Senator Lee's office, Senator Blackburn's office. Sorry if I missed some. Now, as the holiday season starts to ramp up as people want to go home to see their families, do you see that airlines maybe are going to keep pushing on these mandates? Or do you think they're going to maybe realize we need pilots, we need people in the planes,

let's pull these back a little bit. Well, interestingly enough, I guess it depends on the airline. Once the BTR case and then eventually the sixth upheld the stay on the OSHA mandates, and then last week, Senate voted and Biden, the mandates all fell. Spirit Airlines came out first and just said, we're giving up. This is dumb. We're not going to mandate this. All along, American and Southwest have said, we'll give reasonable.

accommodations and don't worry folks you're not going to be out of work Delta a leader in this area has offered reasonable accommodations by a testing so the only airline really forcing the issue is Scott Kirby and United Airlines so I would suggest that everybody else has taken a very reasonable approach based on the the fact that you know the pandemic is starting to wane and the holidays are coming and we need people moved where they need to move now I will also say that United Airlines has bragged from day one, and I absolutely agree with it because I worked through the pandemic. We were safe, we are safe.

You know, the 0.3% chance of catching COVID on an airplane. So we can do it safely, and other airlines have proven that they can keep their people working. What do you see is the stakes here if, you know, these mandates are allowed to continue? If, you know, United continues pushing on with these vaccine mandates for its pilots, do you see this causing industry-wide change?

or do you see this as maybe being more isolated to United? I think it's a gamble on Scott Kirby's part to see what he can get through. I really don't know what it'll do to the industry right now. I mean, if the stay falls on the ocean mandates or the 14-042 executive order, obviously there are industries that are prepared. I know a friend's over in the rail industry at Amtrak. They were told yesterday that their mandate had fallen. but be ready because if 14-042 gets reinstated immediately they'll be required to comply so

these are temporary perhaps stays um more long-term i i do this people ask me every day sherry you work 20 hours a day on this issue what what is the driving force and i will tell you i have a 16-year-old my other co-founders have young children i i cannot wake up someday in 10 years and my kid turned to me and say mom you had a chance to fix this and you didn't and you left me this mess. So, you know, I go, I hearken back to our founding fathers and the reason they came here. They came here for their religious liberty. And it is the last bastion, uh, or, or the last front in the title seven fight. So I'm going to fight till the end for my religious faith and that of my coworkers. And, you know, if that means that I'm done flying,

I guess I have a bigger fight God put in front of me. Now, what advice do you have for those of us who might be dealing with these types of mandates in their jobs? What advice would you give to them? First, I would learn Title VII, Inside Out, know what your rights are. The second piece of advice would be to follow what your company asks. You have the higher hand in court if you do what they ask. If they say fill it out in this type of portal,

if they say write it on a piece of parchment paper, whatever they ask, do what they ask and keep the process interactive. I submitted it. Where do I stand? that way you're building your own case so that you can prove that whether they were interactive or they didn't follow it to the T, asked you for something outside of the law, such as a letter attesting from a one thing they suggested is you had to be a member of an organized religion who disavowed vaccines. Well, that's not in the title. So I would say follow the steps.

Know the law follow the steps as best you can and build your case. And then there are good people. There are organizations like ours that are fighting these mandates out there that will help you. Now, as we begin to wrap up this interview, I want to give you the chance. Where can our listeners learn more about your organization? Sure. We are at Airline Employees for Health Freedom. So the initials, A.E., the number four, hF.org.

We are a 5014C. We could use all the help we can to get this case over the line. And the other one, we have a new, a redirect, jabs for the number four, jobs.org. And that'll take you to the same place. If nothing else, visit the site and watch the stories, see the stories of the faceless people of United Airlines who've had their faith trampled by this ridiculous mandate. And maybe this Christmas season, you'll understand why this is so important to us. Excellent.

That was Sherry Walker, a pilot for United Airlines and co-founder of airline employees for Health Freedom, an organization formed to counter COVID-19 vaccination mandates in the airline industry. Sherry, thank you so much for your time. Thank you. We all know the legacy media isn't reporting the real news. But if we're going to improve our country, Americans need to know what's really going on. The Daily Signal is committed to covering the news that matters. We cover how radical leftist prosecutors whose campaigns were funded by George Soros and his friends

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