Businesses that forced COVID shot should be bankrupted

OPINION:

A.G. Equipment Co., a Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, manufacturer of compressor packaging, has agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by employees who were forced to take the COVID shot or face firing. The payout to 43 former workers who weren’t allowed to claim religious or medical exemptions as a cause to refuse the shot is $4.25 million.

It should be $4.25 million per employee.

Companies that demanded employees get the experimental shots — yes, experimental — should be bankrupted. They should be sued into oblivion by all the employees who were forced to take these experimental shots — yes, experimental — whether these employees sought medical or religious exemptions or not. The default position in free America is employees, as citizens of the United States and therefore endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, are possessed of the right to determine their own medical treatments. They don’t have to ask permission from their bosses to undergo a medical procedure or accept a medical treatment or to refuse the same, simply as a condition of maintaining their employment. They don’t have to choose between a paycheck to feed their families and pay their mortgages, and obeying an employer-issued order to inject their bodies with unknown chemicals.

The default is employees maintain the authority to make their own health decisions. It doesn’t have to be stated; it doesn’t have to be written in policy; it just is.

COVID flipped the Constitution on its head and changed the order of assuming authorities.

Suddenly, employers and government entities held the right to decide what’s best for citizens in terms of health, and overnight, they ran roughshod over individual liberties. Suddenly, bosses held the whip and cracked it over the heads of employees who questioned their authority to force experimental shots — yes, experimental — into their arms. Some employers allowed employees to opt out of taking the shots for medical and religious reasons. Others, like A.G. Equipment Co., did not.

Doesn’t matter.

The principle is the same in either instance.

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Employers don’t have the right to dictate what medical treatments employees should take, or not take — and they don’t have the right to grant exemptions for medical treatments they’re trying to make their employees take.

Neither does the government. 

Employers hid behind the government’s mandates for citizens to take these experimental shots — yes, experimental — and shoulder-shrugged away their responsibilities to the American system. Chief executive officers hunkered in their private company suites and huddled with their human resource heads to best determine how to administer Joe Biden’s presidential dictates while avoiding any possible repercussions to come — while keeping their revenues flowing — while shielding themselves and their shareholders from lawsuits. They should have fought the Biden tyranny on the basis of its unlawful intrusion into their private market rights. Instead, they passed along the unlawful intrusions onto their employees — all so they could continue to make the mighty buck.

Well, they all deserve to be bankrupted now.

Businesses that prosper in America’s free market shouldn’t skate responsibilities and consequences and punishments when they allow that free market to crumble by jumping into bed with tyrants. If businesses want to behave like communist China, let them move to communist China.

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“A.G. Equipment’s enforcement of its vaccine mandate without exceptions was seen as a violation of three employees’ religious rights under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and disability discrimination as per the guidelines set by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990,” H.R. Digest reported.

“Rather than continue to fight the claims in court, A.G. Equipment has agreed to a settlement of $4,250,000, which will be paid out to 43 former workers. In addition to this, A.G. Equipment has to take additional precautions to ensure it does not discriminate based on religion or disability in the future, including training its managers on compliance guidelines as laid out by Title VII and the ADA,” H.R. Digest reported, referring to the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Fine. That’s a start. No doubt, the lawyers are patting themselves on the back.

But what about Biden? What about a government of dictators who served under Biden to stomp a boot on the God-given rights of American citizens? Businesses acted at the bidding of these forces. What about Big Pharma and all the lies told of the safety and efficacy of the experimental shots — yes, experimental?

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Without full accountability, a similar COVID clampdown on citizen freedoms could happen again.

A few bankrupted businesses forced to pay each and every employee for the inconvenience of having to ask for an exemption — for the indignity of having to pretend their bosses are in charge of making personal medical decisions — would send a strong message nationwide and serve as a significant step toward that full accountability.

• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “God-Given Or Bust: Defeating Marxism and Saving America With Biblical Truths,” is available by clicking HERE.

For more information, visit The Washington Times COVID-19 resource page.

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Cheryl K. Chumley

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