(Liberty Counsel) – The nation’s first class action settlement involving a COVID shot mandate should be a wake-up call to every employer that did not accommodate or exempt employees who opposed the COVID shots for religious reasons.
NorthShore University HealthSystem will pay more than $10.3 million for unlawfully discriminating against more than 500 current and former health care workers and for denying religious exemptions from the COVID shot mandate.
There is no pause button on the federal employment law under Title VII. Employees do not lose their right to reasonable accommodation for their religious beliefs simply because an employer or even the federal government pushes a vaccine mandate under the guise of a pandemic. It is past time for employment law attorneys to stop sitting on the side-lines. They need to help people obtain justice.
Liberty Counsel has been working with thousands of employees who face these abusive and unlawful mandates, settling the nation’s first classwide lawsuit for health care workers over a COVID shot mandate. NorthShore will pay $10,337,500 to compensate these employees who were victims of religious discrimination, and who were punished for their religious beliefs against taking an injection associated with aborted fetal cells.
As part of the settlement agreement, NorthShore will also change its unlawful “no religious accommodations” policy to make it consistent with the law, and to provide religious accommodations in every position across its numerous facilities. No position in any NorthShore facility will be considered off limits to unvaccinated employees with approved religious exemptions. In addition, employees who were terminated because of their religious refusal of the COVID shots will be eligible for rehire if they apply within 90 days of final settlement approval by the court, and they will retain their previous seniority level.
This is a historic, first-of-its-kind class action settlement against a private employer who unlawfully denied hundreds of religious exemption requests to COVID-19 shots. The agreed upon settlement was filed in the federal Northern District Court of Illinois and must be approved by the court. Employees of NorthShore who were denied religious exemptions will receive notice of the settlement, and will have an opportunity to comment, object, request to opt out, or submit a claim form for payment out of the settlement fund, all in accordance with deadlines that will be set by the court.
The WHO Pandemic Treaty looks set to be one of the biggest power-grabs in living memory, with unelected globalists seeking the power to declare pandemics, and then control your country's response.
But it's not too late to do something about it.
SIGN and SHARE this special petition telling Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus that the WHO will never usurp your nation's sovereignty.
The past two years have been rife with infringements on personal liberties and civil rights by national governments, but now the World Health Organization is seeking to appropriate those same abusive powers to itself at a global level.
194 member states representing 99% of the world's population are expected to sign pandemic treaties with the WHO that would allow Tedros, or any future Director General, to dictate exactly how your nation would respond to a new disease outbreak which they consider a pandemic.
This attack on national sovereignty will come as no surprise to those who for years have listened to elites like Klaus Schwab and Bill Gates discussing their vision for the centralization of power into globalist organizations like the World Economic Forum (WEF), the WHO and the rest of the United Nations.
SIGN this petition against the WHO's Pandemic Treaty, before it's too late.
Ludicrously, 20 world leaders calling for the treaty, including Tedros, Boris Johnson and Emmanuel Macron, compared the post-Covid world to the post-WWII period, saying similar co-operation is now needed to "dispel the temptations of isolationism and nationalism, and to address the challenges that could only be achieved together in the spirit of solidarity and co-operation - namely peace, prosperity, health and security."
Australian PM Scott Morrison is the latest leader to express support for a “pandemic treaty”.
The stated intention of the WHO is to “kickstart a global process to draft and negotiate a convention, agreement or other international instrument under the Constitution of the World Health Organization to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.”
The wheels are already in motion, with the Biden administration officially proposing the initial steps towards handing global pandemic control to the WHO.
Biden's representatives have submitted amendments to the WHO's International Health Regulations (IHR), which would give the Director General the right to declare health emergencies in any nation, even when disputed by the country in question.
These amendments, which would be legally binding under international law, will be voted on by the World Health Assembly (the governing body of the WHO) at a special convention running from May 22-28 and set the stage for a fully-fledged pandemic treaty to be passed.
SIGN and SHARE the petition telling the WHO that you won't accept any pandemic treaty
The ball has been rolling since the last World Health Assembly meeting in December, where the United States launched negotiations "on a new international health instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response," a U.S. statement read.
"This momentous step represents our collective responsibility to work together to advance health security and to make the global health system stronger and more responsive.
"We look forward to broad and deep negotiations using a whole-of-society and whole-of-government approach that will strengthen the international legal framework for public health/pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response and enable us to address issues of equity, accountability, and multisectoral collaboration evident in the COVID-19 pandemic.
"We know it will take all of us working together across governments, private sector, philanthropy, academia, and civil society to make rapid progress towards a long-term solution for these complex problems," the U.S. statement added.
SIGN the petition today to show the WHO that you won't accept this attack on national sovereignty.
These are precarious times in which freedom and self-determination must be defended from those who would ride rough-shod over your civil rights.
We do not want to go back to global lockdowns, vaccine mandates and propoganda.
Sign the petition - speak up now!
For More Information:
Biden hands over American sovereignty with proposed WHO treaty - LifeSiteNews
Pandemic Treaty is a backdoor to global governance - LifeSiteNews
Dr. Robert Malone on the WHO's power-grab - LifeSiteNews
**Photo: YouTube Screenshot**
The amount of individual payments from the settlement fund will depend on how many valid and timely claim forms are submitted during the claims process. If the settlement is approved by the court and all or nearly all of the affected employees file valid and timely claims, it is estimated that employees who were terminated or resigned because of their religious refusal of a COVID shot will receive approximately $25,000 each, and employees who were forced to accept a COVID shot against their religious beliefs to keep their jobs will receive approximately $3,000 each.
The 13 health care workers who are lead plaintiffs in the lawsuit will receive an additional approximate payment of $20,000 each for their important role in bringing this lawsuit and representing the class of NorthShore health care workers.
Liberty Counsel will receive 20 percent of the settlement sum, which equals $2,061,500, as payment for the significant attorney’s fees and costs it has required to undertake a lawsuit against NorthShore and hold it accountable for its actions. This amount is far less than the typical 33 percent usually requested by attorneys in class action litigation.
In October 2021, Liberty Counsel sent a demand letter to NorthShore on behalf of numerous health care workers who had sincere religious objections to the company’s “Mandatory COVID-19 Vaccination Policy.” If NorthShore had agreed then to follow the law and grant religious exemptions, the matter would have been quickly resolved and it would have cost the company nothing. But, when NorthShore refused to follow the law and instead denied all religious exemption and accommodation requests for employees working in its facilities, Liberty Counsel filed a class action lawsuit, along with a motion for a temporary restraining order and injunction.
Liberty Counsel Vice President of Legal Affairs and Chief Litigation Counsel Horatio G. Mihet said, “The policy change and substantial monetary relief required by the settlement will bring a strong measure of justice to NorthShore’s employees who were callously forced to choose between their conscience and their jobs.”
Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel said: “Let this case be a warning to employers that violated Title VII. It is especially significant and gratifying that this first classwide COVID settlement protects health care workers.”
“Health care workers are heroes who daily give their lives to protect and treat their patients. They are needed now more than ever.”
Reprinted with permission from Liberty Counsel.