Making their voices heard: Protesters wrap up their protest in front of GE Aviation on Friday along South Third Street. Tribune-Star/Joseph C. Garza
An estimated 100 GE Aviation employees demonstrated outside the company’s headquarters on U.S. 41 in downtown Terre Haute on Friday afternoon, protesting the federal vaccine mandate.
On Sept. 9, President Biden announced measures requiring federal workers and private sector workers in businesses with more than 100 employees to be vaccinated, with employees in private industry allowed to take a weekly test for COVID in lieu of vaccination. The mandate is expected to affect more than 100 million Americans.
As a government contractor, GE Aviation must participate in the mandate.
“There’s been a government mandate that our employer has embraced that is forcing us to take the COVID-19 vaccination by Dec. 8 or get a religious or medical exemption,” said Shane White, a quality engineer at GE.
“The mandate in my opinion is an infringement on my freedom of choice. I became part of the movement and have tried to facilitate our effort to regain our freedom.”
White has not been vaccinated, though some of those protesting on Friday said they had received the shot in the arm.
“This protest and our movement is not to segregate vaxed or unvaxed or anybody in particular, it’s about freedom of choice,” White said. “The overreach of this government doing this mandate is unreasonable in my opinion.”
Kevin Birchfield, a manufacturing engineer for the company, agreed.
“It’s more about the freedom of the choice,” Birchfield said. “As Americans, as people, we need to look at the data, we need to understand it, we need to talk to our doctors — ‘Is this right for us?’ — and make that decision ourselves.”
Birchfield currently doesn’t have a doctor; his retired shortly after the pandemic began. He did consult with his doctor when the COVID-19 outbreak was beginning and was reassured that he wasn’t at particular risk for the virus, and has since checked out the Centers for Disease Control website for additional information.
“Looking on the website, the risk based on my age group and overall health [was low],” he said.
“I’m not anti-vaccine — I think it’s great, I really do. It’s good for certain people and certain age groups, but it did not seem like it would be something for me.” His parents and grandfather have been vaccinated, he added, and “I think it’s great.”
Moreover, “It feels like it’s a bit irresponsible to have a government tell you you have to take it or lose your job,” Birchfield said.
“Some people, when you tell them what to do, they’re more discouraged to do it. That’s where I’m at with it.”
Protestors carried signs and waved to passing motorists who honked their horns in support.
One man held a facsimile of a giant vaccine syringe aloft, while another brandished a flag in which the Stars and Stripes melded into a “Don’t Tread on Me” banner.
GE Aviation employees are hardly the only ones upset with the vaccine mandate.
The state of Arizona has sought a restraining order against it, and CNN has reported that police unions from Seattle to Chicago to Baltimore have all resisted mandatory vaccines.
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