Lawsuit alleges employment-based vaccine mandates could have discriminatory impact on BIPOC community and seeks information to find out
Teamsters Joint Council 28 has filed a lawsuit against Washington Governor Jay Inslee and the Washington Office of Financial Management to stall the termination of unvaccinated Teamsters-represented workers under Governor Inslee’s Proclamation 21-14.1. Teamsters Joint Council 28 is the collective bargaining representative of over 51,000 workers, including thousands of state employees who are impacted by Governor Inslee’s Proclamations. The Joint Council is waiting for the Governor and OFM to respond to information requests aimed to determine the impact of the COVID-19 vaccine mandates on Black, Indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC), as vaccination rates in some demographic groups have been lower than vaccination rates among White workers. The lawsuit demands that implementation of terminations under the vaccine mandate be halted for Teamsters-represented workers until the information is provided, worker demographic data can be analyzed, and impact on BIPOC communities of terminations under the mandate can be assessed.
The Executive Board of Teamsters Joint Council 28 had already made its position regarding Governor Inslee’s vaccine mandates clear in September, when an open letter was published that addressed our grave concerns regarding the innate unfairness of threatening someone with termination when mere months prior, that person was deemed “essential” and forced to keep reporting to work in harm’s way. Governor Inslee did not take our concerns seriously at that time, forcing us to take this action to protect our members and the careers they have built in their fields of expertise.
Teamsters Joint Council 28 requests injunctive relief ordering the Defendants to produce information we have requested so that we can evaluate whether the terminations resulting from implementation of Governor Inslee’s Proclamations will have a disparate impact on BIPOC workers represented by our constituent Unions. We also seek relief enjoining implementation of terminations under the Proclamations of Teamsters-represented employees covered by the Proclamations until that information is produced and analyzed to determine if further legal action needs to be taken to permanently enjoin the terminations of unvaccinated employees.
View the full lawsuit here.