Israel: Rafael Advanced Defense Systems workers unite against Green Pass: 'Trampling human rights'
A group of about 200 Rafael Advanced Defense Systems workers in Israel are refusing to cooperate with company Green Passport policy, reports the Israeli Hai Po news site. "The Green Passport has no epidemiological significance and exists solely to create unreasonable pressure on people to perform a medical procedure contrary to the principle of informed consent," said the ad hoc Green Dome group, which represents over 200 Rafael employees.
The group, which started with only a handful of people, grew in one day, with the decision to apply Green Passport restrictions in the Rafael compound. The group consists of vaccinated and unvaccinated workers, who want what they call the “incitement” to stop.
Group members say they know, as senior health officials know, that there is no epidemiological significance to the Green Passport, and that its very existence is intended solely to create unreasonable pressure on people to submit to a medical procedure. The workers maintain that it is important for them to preserve an island of sanity free from incitement and division.
The group emphasizes that there is no significance to a Green Passport, nor to weekly tests, whereas their choice to support or oppose discrimination is highly significant.
A Rafael employee and group member said: "We formed the group with a few friends when they spoke in the media about the Green Passport and we recognized that there was going to be a problem. We feared the day this would happen, and one fine day, when Rafael issued a notice that the Green Pass would apply in the company, a handful became 200 people. These are people who do not want to allow the Green Pass inside Rafael, because Rafael is a company that does not meet the requirements for the Green Pass. The Green Pass relates to venues open to the public with an element of providing services to the public, and Rafael does not fulfill any of these conditions. Rafael is a closed place and it does not give service to anyone. The company's excuse is that there is a kind of service, as there is a warehouse and if one approaches it, it's as if it's providing a service. It's just an insult to the intelligence, no one buys it. Rafael simply volunteered to do it, but doesn't have to allow the Green Pass in its territory."
Another employee said: "We won't present the Green Pass in Rafael and won't cooperate. Our company has an app that asks us to update whether we have a Green Pass or if not, when we intend to get vaccinated, etc. We're boycotting it and won't cooperate. We get a phone call every day, and the company invests resources to find out why the app wasn't installed. Some of us don't answer and others don't cooperate, but they don't give up and continue to call every day. We don't accept it in any way."
They continue: "We oppose the Green Pass because we think the reasons for applying it are not epidemiological, and we take action based on evidence and not on hypotheses or desires to produce a large number of vaccinated. We think there is no company without workers, and society cannot exist without workers. In Canada, for example, at Honda's factory, they didn't agree to cooperate with the Green Pass, and they're still working even though the country does follow the Green Pass. We encourage people to organize everywhere."
Rafael Advanced Defense Systems responded to Hai Po: “Rafael's COVID care policy is adapted to what is accepted in the economy and is based first and foremost on the need to take care of the health and well-being of company employees. It should be emphasized that this policy does not entail any exclusion or coercion to vaccinate.”
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