Maine anti-vaxxers continue to challenge vaccine public health benefits

Federal judge rejects challenge to Maine's vaccine mandate

Echo report by Christian Wade in The Center Square/Maine

(The Center Square) – A federal judge tossed out a lawsuit challenging Governor Janet Mills’ COVID-19 vaccine mandate for Maine's health-care workers that had been criticized as government overreach.

The lawsuit, filed a year ago by the Florida-based Liberty Council, alleged that the vaccine requirement violates state and federal law by requiring vaccinations for health-care workers without allowing a religious exemption for those who object.

The legal challenge was filed on behalf of several medical workers who have religious objections to the vaccines and were either fired or told they can't be employed by state-funded health care groups because they refuse to get jabbed.

But U.S. District Court Judge Levy rejected the plaintifs' claims of religious discrimination, saying the requirement "aligns with the state’s interest in protecting public health and, more specifically, medically vulnerable individuals from illness and infectious diseases."

“Reducing the number of unvaccinated healthcare workers at designated healthcare facilities in Maine is rationally related to the government’s interests in limiting the spread of COVID-19, safeguarding Maine’s healthcare capacity, and protecting the lives and health of Maine people,” Levy wrote in the 36-page ruling.

In a statement, Liberty Council vowed to appeal the ruling saying it thinks Levy erred in his decision to reject claims of religious discrimination against health-care workers.

"No one should be faced with this unconscionable choice, especially the health care heroes who have served admirably for the entire duration of COVID-19," Liberty Counsel Chairman Mat Staver said. "These health care workers have already suffered irreparable harm by being forced to choose between their jobs and their sincerely held religious beliefs."

Under Mills' executive order, which went into effect last October, health-care workers in the state were required to be fully vaccinated against the virus. The requirement includes health-care workers in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, firefighters, emergency medical service organizations and dental workers.

Only medical exemptions were allowed, not religious or philosophical.

Mills has said the rules are needed to prevent further COVID-19 outbreaks. When she first announced the policy, the state was battling a resurgence of the virus that had contributed to a rise in new infections and hospitalizations.

The vaccine mandate was backed by the Maine Medical Association, the Maine Hospital Association and several other health care groups, which say it will improve public health.

But the Liberty Counsel argues that religious objections to the vaccines must be allowed under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the First Amendment.

"Many people hold sincere religious beliefs against taking any vaccines, or taking those derived from aborted fetal cell lines, or taking those sold by companies that profit from the sale of vaccines and other products derived from abortion," the group said.

The federal judge's decision to toss out the Maine lawsuit follows the U.S. Supreme Court's rejection earlier this year of (the scientific evidence-based) President Joe Biden's proposed COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal health care workers and a similar mandate for large companies. 

Maine was not one of the states that joined those (other wrong-minded) legal challenges.

Nurses unions at a critical place in Maine with decertification vote looming

Nurses unions have not improved the quality of patient care.  Moreover, the union movement in nursing has done nothing to improve patients' access to health care.  As a registered nurse, I have been unable to understand the value of having nurses unionized. What nurses need is the ability to provide expertly professional care by being authorized to use the full scope of their license to practice.

Nursing: " I solemnly pledge myself before God and in the presence of this assembly to pass my life in purity and to practice my profession faithfully. I will abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous, and will not take or knowingly administer any harmful drug", Florence Nightingale (1920-1910).

Maine nurses to vote on union decertification By Christian Wade / The Center Square contributor

(The Center Square) – Nurses at one of Maine's largest hospitals will vote next month on whether to drop union representation they approved more than a year ago. A proposal would decertify the Maine State Nurses Association (in fact, this is dba, - "doing business as" because the name of the organization is real the California Nurses Association, affiliated with the SEIU)...as the union representative for about 2,000 registered nurses working at the Maine Medical Center in Portland, the flagship hospital for the state's Medicaid program, and other locations. 

Voting is expected Aug. 17 or 18.

The proposed decertification comes more than a year after 57% of nurses voted to unionize under the MSNA, a process that was certified by the National Labor Relations Board, a federal agency that oversees employment relations. The Maine union is an affiliate of National Nurses United, one of the largest nurses unions.

New rules adopted by labor board in 2020, allow unionized workers to request a decertification vote, but they must wait at least a year after the initial certification vote to put the referendum up for consideration by its membership.

The nurses who pushed for the vote are backed by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, which argues that the certification vote was approved by a "dubious" mail voting process. The decertification vote next month will be held in person at several locations.

"Maine Medical Center employees are more than reasonable in their desire to oust Maine State Nurses Association union officials, who came to power at the facility through a questionable mail-ballot vote and have failed to produce a contract in over a year," Mark Mix, the group's president, said in a statement.

"No health-care worker should be subject to the monopoly control of a union that they don’t believe serves their interests," he added.

The group argues that mail balloting elections "benefit union organizers" because of lower turnout among voters. It also argues that mail balloting has resulted in "post office errors that disenfranchise workers" and alleges that union organizers engage in "ballot harvesting" which "undermines the privacy of workers’ votes."

While the nurses have had union representation for more than a year, they have still yet to finalize a contract with the Maine Medical Center. That has led to recent job actions with nurses calling for improved working conditions and other workplace issues.

The foundation says it has provided legal advice to public sector workers in several states – including Michigan, Minnesota, New York and Massachusetts – to "remove unwanted unions" from hospitals and other health-care settings.

But representatives of the nurses union say they are close to reaching a deal on a contract with the medical center, and predict that the decertification effort will fail.

"The question in this election is if nurses want to continue using their collective voice to make things better at Maine Medical Center, or hand all of the decision making power back to management," Todd Ricker, a chief negotiator with the Maine State Nurses Association, said in a statement on the upcoming vote.

"The strong majority of nurses wants to win this election, keep the union, and continue winning real improvements for their patients and themselves," he added