AstraZeneca workers fired for refusing vaccine claim company engaged in age-discrimination

Esteban Parra
·4 min read
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AstraZeneca, in a plot to lower the average age of its workforce, engaged in discrimination when it fired workers who refused COVID-19 vaccines because of religious reasons, a federal lawsuit filed by seven former workers of the pharmaceutical company said.

The fired workers cited a 2021 presentation by an AstraZeneca director of sales in which he claimed the company's average employee age was around 48 and indicated that was "too high." The former workers, all over the age of 40, were among as many as 200 people fired the following year after claiming religious exemptions from vaccination.

"But the [reduction in force] could not be so deep as to endanger profits," said the class-action lawsuit filed the day after Christmas in U.S. District Court in Delaware. "That is why AstraZeneca's approach was brilliant because it allowed the company to not terminate all of its older and religious employees, only a sufficiently large group that hit the sweet spot between cutting costs and retaining experienced employees necessary to maintain profitability."

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AstraZeneca logo
AstraZeneca logo

A spokesperson for AstraZeneca, whose U.S. headquarters are in Delaware, said the legal action was unfounded.

"Throughout the pandemic, AstraZeneca has strived to protect the safety of its employees, their families, our local communities and the patients we serve," Jillian Gonzales said. "We believe that there is no merit to this lawsuit and will vigorously defend against its allegations."

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The fight against AstraZeneca

In March 2021, Mike Hartman, AstraZeneca's U.S. director of sales, stated in a nationwide sales presentation that the average age of AstraZeneca’s employees was around 48, indicating that was "too high," the lawsuit said.

"Mr. Hartman then proceeded to emphasize how few of AstraZeneca’s employees were under the age of 30 and that the percentage needed to increase," according to the lawsuit, which added that in May of that year, Hartman said the pharmaceutical company had an aging workforce and needed to focus on hiring young talent.

The court documents also cite AstraZeneca's head of inclusion and diversity at that time as emphasizing the company was striving to cultivate a younger workforce and stated the company was doing poorly at increasing the percentage of employees under the age of 30.

AstraZeneca's U.S. headquarters is in Delaware.
AstraZeneca's U.S. headquarters is in Delaware.

The COVID-19 pandemic presented AstraZeneca with a "unique and unprecedented opportunity" to lower the average age of its workforce, according to the lawsuit. That's because, about September 2021, the company required all its workers to declare their vaccination status.

"In devising a strategy to eliminate older employees, using the mandate as its weapon of choice, AstraZeneca also violated Title VII by systematically rigging the religious accommodation process to rid itself of as many older religious employees as it possibly could," the lawsuit claims. "If lowering the average age of the workforce was the stated destination, then the sham religious accommodation process was the selected vehicle."

Workers who objected to the vaccine were allowed to request a religious accommodation.

But, according to the lawsuit, AstraZeneca "did not perform an honest, good faith assessment of each religious exemption request" and in April terminated up to 200 religious employees who were over the age of 40 and had sought religious exemptions.

The class-action lawsuit cites the case of 61-year-old Robert Wilhoit, who had been with AstraZeneca for more than 24 years and was an executive diabetes sales specialist before his termination after being denied a religious accommodation.

Wilhoit, who lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, was replaced by a 38-year-old woman. Wilhoit applied for a job he was well-qualified for, according to the lawsuit, but the position was given to a 23-year-old person who had no pharmaceutical experience.

"Simply put, AstraZeneca devised a corporate scheme to purge as many older and religious employees as it credibly could, all under the guise of advancing 'workplace safety,'" the lawsuit claims.

Some of what the former AstraZeneca workers are seeking include back and front pay, lost benefits, compensatory damages and damages for emotional distress, pain and suffering.

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Contact Esteban Parra at (302) 324-2299, eparra@delawareonline.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: AstraZeneca suit: Older, religious workers fired for refusing vaccine