About 75 current and former Pittsburgh Regional Transit bus drivers and maintenance workers sued the authority Tuesday, saying they were illegally fired for not getting the COVID-19 vaccination.
The group filed the case in federal court as a class-action complaint on the grounds that the authority violated their “sincerely held religious beliefs” against getting vaccinated or their claims that they should be exempt for medical reasons.
The complaint represents fired workers as well as others who said they were forced to get vaccinated to keep working.
According to the suit, the authority denied workers’ requests for religious and medical exemptions to getting the vaccine without a good faith review of their claims.
The authority announced in January that workers had to get the vaccine by March 15 or face termination. It told the employees that it would establish a procedure for religious and medical exemptions, but the lawsuit said that process was “nothing more than a sham.” According to the complaint, the authority told the exemption committee to deny exemptions unless an employee was part of a group deemed essential to continuing operations.
No one on the five-person committee had any training in religious issues or medicine, the suit says.
Hundreds of workers submitted exemption requests because of religious beliefs or medical problems and others got vaccinated against their will because no one told them they had the right to refuse, the plaintiffs said.
“The clear, unstated policy of the [authority], applicable to all employees, was that regardless of the validity of your religious or medical exemption you either got the vaccine or you got fired,” the complaint says.
The suit cites several examples of workers whose requests for exemptions were denied.
One 20-year veteran who had no contact with the public and little contact with other employees submitted a request on religious grounds and was denied. He then submitted additional information from his church as well as statements from co-workers saying they didn’t mind if he wasn’t vaccinated.
“Despite all this information, he was fired,” the suit says. “He went from hero to zero for exercising his religious beliefs.”
In another case, a bus driver with anaphylaxis wanted a medical exemption because he said his doctor told him the vaccine could kill him. The authority denied the request. The driver went to a drug store against his doctor’s advice to get the vaccine, but the store refused to give him the shot, the suit says.
When the driver told the authority about the refusal, his exemption was still denied, he said.
The suit said the 75 plaintiffs who asked for exemptions each got the same “generic” form letter denying their requests.
Authority spokesman Adam Brandolph said PRT’s vaccination rate is about 98%, not 100%, because some workers were indeed granted religious or medical exemptions. He also said seven employees died prior to the enforcement of the vaccination policy while none have died since.
Beyond that, he said, he could not comment.
The suit is asking a judge for an injunction against the vaccine mandate, reinstatement of workers to lost jobs, back pay and lawyer fees.
Torsten covers the courts for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Reach him at jtorsteno@gmail.com.
