Four BMS employees have filed a lawsuit against BMS after claiming the company would not grant them a religious exemption and threatened their employment.
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Bristol Myers Squibb is in the crosshairs of litigation over the company’s vaccine mandate for employees. Four BMS employees have filed a lawsuit against the pharma giant after claiming the company would not grant them a religious exemption and threatened their employment.
On Wednesday, Reuters reported the company employees, all earning six-figure salaries, filed a proposed class-action lawsuit in federal court, claiming the company violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VII prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. According to the report, the four plaintiffs claimed that the company is “systematically manufacturing” reasons to refuse religious accommodations.
The lawsuit was filed at a time when the U.S. government is urging vaccinations against COVID-19 and attempting to mandate that companies with 100 or more employees require vaccination for employment. Legal challenges to the mandate have currently placed its binding demand on temporary hold, but the president is urging companies to initiate it anyway due to rising concerns of the Omicron variant that has now reached the shores of the United States. The first case of infection with the Omicron variant was detected in California earlier this week.
Reuters have identified the BMS employees who filed the lawsuit as Carrie Kefalas, a physician overseeing clinical trial risk management for drug development; biotechnologist John Lott; data integrity manager Jeremy Beer, and biologist Kamila Dubisz. Reuters reported they filed the lawsuit after the company allegedly rejected their request for religious exemption as “insincere.” The plaintiffs claimed the company demanded “inquisitorial” questionnaires about their reasons for religious exemptions. They claimed the rejection was due to their political beliefs.
Additionally, the plaintiffs said BMS rejected the exemption request from Kefalas because the company “thought her beliefs were insincere and she might not accept mask-wearing or regular COVID-19 testing.” The four plaintiffs added that BMS offered no other reasons for the rejection.
BMS said its policy is for all eligible employees to receive a vaccine against COVID-19 to ensure the health and safety of its staff. In its report, Reuters said BMS pointed to its rejection letter to Kefalas that highlighted comments about vaccine mandates she made publicly. According to the report, Kefalas called vaccine requirements a “communist, unamerican practice [sic].”
Vaccine objection in the U.S. has become a partisan political issue, and employees have made multiple challenges to requirements for vaccination. Many of those challenges have failed in court. For example, on Tuesday, a U.S. district judge rejected a lawsuit brought by five employees against United Launch Alliance, an aerospace company. The plaintiffs sought religious exemptions and claimed that the mandates violated Title VII, much like the BMS employees. CBS reported the judge rejected that claim. He said the provision of the Civil Rights Act requires employees to “provide reasonable accommodations to employees if the accommodations do not place an ‘undue burden’ on the employer.”
The Mayo Clinic has denied religious exemption requests as well. The healthcare giant set a Dec. 3 deadline for vaccinations. Employees who do not comply by Jan. 3, 2022, risk losing their jobs. Kelley Luckstein, a spokesperson for the Mayo Clinic, said enforcing vaccinations will ensure a healthy workforce and that “Mayo is a safe place to receive care—just as our patients expect.”
Earlier this week, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer rejected a request from eight Mass General Brigham Inc. employees for a religious exemption for vaccines. The hospital had already terminated the employees.
The U.S. Navy has yet to approve any religious exemptions. According to USNI News, the Navy received 2,531 requests for religious exemptions but has so far not approved any.
