A federal judge in Eastern Washington will hear oral arguments by telephone Dec. 17 on whether to issue a temporary restraining order that would put the brakes on potential firings by Department of Energy contractors of guards and other employees at the Hanford Site who refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccination.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Rice in a Tuesday order also instructed defendants, which include Hanford’s major contractors, DOE site manager Brian Vance and President Joe Biden, to file their response by Dec. 10 to the plaintiffs’ motion for a temporary restraining order.
In mid-November, about 290 Hanford workers, many of them guards, filed suit against the government and federal contractors in the U.S. District Court of Eastern Washington.
The workers are seeking an injunction against the vaccine order at the former plutonium production complex that is now a major DOE nuclear cleanup property.
“Defendants are on notice that the Hanford Site will have insufficient workers, including Hanford Guards and other employees required to maintain a minimum safe (“min safe”) work environment at the Hanford Site as of November 29, 2021, absent a change in position,” the vaccine refusers wrote in their suit.
They are represented by a law firm retained by the Silent Majority Foundation, an organization active in a number of legal challenges to vaccine mandates in Washington state.
