Hundreds of Hanford workers urged at rally to lose their jobs rather than get COVID vaccine

Several hundred Hanford and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory workers were urged to stand firm against a federal COVID-19 vaccine mandate at a rally Wednesday afternoon in Richland.

“In the end what counts is not ditching your values for high-paying jobs,” said Ben Stafford, who said he was among workers who could lose their jobs.

An estimated 16,000 workers at Hanford and PNNL who are paid with federal taxpayer dollars are required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or receive a religious or medical exemption to keep their jobs.

The deadline for the majority of those workers — employees of the Department of Energy’s contractors and subcontractors at Hanford — have until Dec. 8 to show they are fully vaccinated against the virus.

Luis Ojeda, owner of a small business that does Hanford subcontracting, said he was “willing to lose everything” rather than enforce the vaccine mandate.

“I will not ask for a vaccine card,” he told the crowd. “I will not violate medical privacy.”

He believes the vaccine requirement is not Constitutional.

“We the people will not live in fear over mandates the government will throw on us,” he said.

The two-hour rally was held in a parking lot on Stevens Drive in Richland, across the street from Stevens Center, where DOE Hanford workers and many contractors have offices.

As the evening Hanford commute began, cars and trucks honked their support to dozens of people lining Stevens Drive with signs and flags.

“No jabs for jobs” and “Take this jab and shove it,” said signs.

“Let’s Go Brandon” signs, plus T-shirts and a flag, were popular.

The saying is a slur against President Joe Biden, who issued the mandate requiring federal workers, including contractor workers, to be vaccinated or get an exemption, with job accommodations made only if the exemption is legally required.

Vaccine mandate lawsuits

“Do not tolerate tyranny,” urged Republican Rep. Brad Klippert, a sheriff’s deputy from Kennewick, at the rally.

He argued that most people who contract COVID-19 survive the disease.

Two attorneys said they were working on filing lawsuits on behalf of Hanford and PNNL workers.

Hanford employs about 11,000 people for $2.5 billion in annual work on environmental cleanup of the 580-square-mile site adjoining the Tri-Cities in Eastern Washington. Plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program was produced there through the Cold War.

PNNL, a Department of Energy research laboratory, employs more than 5,000 people, most based in Richland. Battelle, which holds the contract to operate the national lab, is requiring workers to be vaccinated or have an approved exemption by Nov. 15, ahead of the federal mandate.

The Silent Majority Foundation had announced plans for a class action lawsuit in October, and the nonprofit’s director and lead attorney Pete Serrano said at the rally that he hoped to file the lawsuit within the next 10 days.

About 150 Hanford and PNNL workers have signed up as plaintiffs, said Serrano, who also is a Pasco city councilman.

Tracy Tribbett, an attorney with the Pacific Justice Institute in Seattle, said she also was looking to file lawsuits on behalf of Hanford and PNNL employees.

Southern Poverty Law Center calls Pacific Justice Institute a hate group, based on its anti-LGBT stands, but the institute describes itself as a legal organization specializing in the defense of religious freedom and other civil liberties.

Tribbett said her lawsuits would take a different tack than the Silent Majority Foundation and that the two different legal strategies would complement each other.

“All of you can band together and walk out of your jobs to show that your employers need you more than you need them,” she said.

The crowd cheered as she said that workers could survive without a Hanford or PNNL job, but their employers could not survive without them.

COVID vaccine opposition

Much of the rally was devoted to testimonials, some submitted in writing and then read to the crowd, from people who believed they or family members had been harmed by the COVID-19 vaccine.

One example was a person who was vaccinated and shortly afterward was diagnosed with abdominal pain diagnosed as diverticulitis.

In most cases, people said doctors did not confirm that illnesses were related to the vaccine.

The Benton Franklin Health District says that no resident of Benton and Franklin counties has died from the vaccine.

Since early this year when the vaccine was widely available, however, more than 200 people in the Tri-Cities area have died from complications of COVID-19, say health officials.

Data through September shows that all but 16 of those who died were unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated.

Among the speakers at the rally was Dr. Wei-Hsung Lin of West Richland, who is among the small minority of doctors who believes the COVID-19 vaccine is not safe and effective.

He immigrated from China at age 24, and he likened the vaccine mandates to that country’s former policy of allowing couples to have only one child, with enforcement that ranged from fines to abortions and sterilization.

“Now we are living in a situation where our government is going to enforce something to be introduced into our body without our consent or we would have to lose our job,” he said.

PNNL said when it announced its COVID-19 vaccine requirement in September that 86% of its employees had at least one dose of the vaccine then.

The Department of Energy has declined to say how many Hanford nuclear reservation workers have provided proof of vaccination.

“Like other federal agencies, we are continuing to collect vaccination information from employees as we approach the deadline,” DOE said in a statement Wednesday.

Hanford employees who work for DOE have an earlier vaccine deadline, Nov. 22, than federal contractor and subcontractor employees at the site.

On Oct. 28 a stop-work order filed by an employee concerned about COVID controls led to a work stoppage at at one contractor, Hanford Mission Integration Solutions.

Workers who have a safety complaint can ask that work be stopped until it is resolved.

The order was lifted on Monday, and the contractor said it had little impact on work since most employees work 10-hour shifts Monday through Thursday.

This story was originally published November 4, 2021 at 9:44 AM.