Dale Jackson: Kay Ivey needs to call a special session to protect workers from vaccine mandates, and she should do it now

The special session for Alabama’s prisons is here, and besides myself and the people reading this, no one cares.

We are about to spend well north of a billion dollars on Alabama’s worst citizens. Don’t get me wrong — I think they need to be caged in the most legal and humane way possible.

Legislators will quibble about sentencing reform and letting bad guys out of jail early, but that is just nibbling around the edges. Your average human being is fine with convicted criminals sitting in jail cells. The Alabama legislator needs to figure out a way for the Department of Justice to be OK with it.

There is another serious issue facing the state of Alabama right now that affects Alabama’s best citizens, which is what I am told our frontline workers are: vaccine mandates.

Those frontline workers are hospital employees, education employees, those working retail and others. Some would even include our precious radio talk show hosts as essential workers.

We spent almost two years talking about how important these people were. We let these people go to work every day with a mask that doesn’t work on their face so I could get my McRib, sick people could be treated at hospitals and your kids could be in the classroom.

So what do we do now? We tell them to get the heck out and take away their income and careers?

There are some government mandates already — Biden mandates that are allegedly coming, and private companies (including mine) have mandates already.

Alabama Governor Kay Ivey and Attorney General Steve Marshall have both declared they will go to war with Biden over this mandate.

So, what has Alabama said about private companies and their mandates?

Nothing.

Yet.

I have spoken to multiple Alabama legislators that want to see something done on this front, but they doubt it can be done in this special session. The rules for raising an unrelated issue and getting it passed are a pretty high bar.

So nothing can be done until the 2022 legislative session unless the governor calls another special session solely to address this issue.

She absolutely should.

The state of Alabama wanted people back to work, employers wanted these people back at work, and the people wanted to go back to work.

The Alabama legislature passed a law protecting employers from frivolous lawsuits to make this happen.

Governor Ivey ended enhanced unemployment benefits to get people back to work.

Now it is time for Ivey to call a special session, or add on to this session if she can, and for the legislature to protect these workers.

By 2022, these employees will have already been fired and their lives destroyed. Now is the time to act.

There is no reason to wait. Do it now.

Dale Jackson is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts a talk show from 5-9AM weekdays on WVNN and on Talk 99.5 from 10AM to noon.