January 18, 2022
-BizPac Review
Fox News host Shannon Bream explored a new website whose goal is to “help the unvaccinated get linked to jobs that don’t require them to get the jab.”
In a timely interview just days after the Supreme Court struck down Joe Biden’s proposed vaccine mandate for large businesses, Red Balloon founder and CEO Andrew Crapuchettes said he is “facilitating freedom”:
“If you want to post jobs on RedBalloon.work, you have to sign our pledge that says the Constitution still matters and applies to everybody, freedom still matters and applies to everybody, and I’m not going to require vaccinations of my employees,” he said in the clip played by Bream on Monday’s episode of “Fox News @ Night.”
Bream explored the legalities of this website with civil rights attorney Robert Patillo, as well as with Sarah Gounder, an attorney and data privacy specialist.
Bream began the discussion by noting that Crapuchettes said that he would not allow postings from employers who require that only unvaccinated people can apply, asserting that that restriction would not be freedom either. He says he simply wants to have an open market; it appears to be well-received to date.
Patillo responded to this by pointing out that even professional athletes like Antonio Brown and Kyrie Irving have very publicly refused the vaccine but still need jobs; Patillo’s concern is with the fine print. He felt that the site should have a disclaimer to ensure that the posts include wording to establish that “even though the individual job does not require a vaccination, that state and local ordinances or even the federal mandate for health care workers would still apply, that that is still included in there.”
“I think if that he does not include a disclaimer of that nature, then that could get him into some legal trouble down the road,” he added.
Camden Spiller, CEO of Maddox Industrial Transformer, has been using Red Balloon and had this to say on the Fox Business Channel in September of 2021: “I’ve got friends running global, multibillion-dollar businesses telling me, ‘I’m struggling to find people.’ Small little American businesses like ours are struggling to find people. But for those that let it be known that they’re not going to force these ideologies, there’s a tremendous amount of people out there, more than we could possibly take in.”
Bream noted that Spiller is finding “like-minded employees that agree with their freedom-minded business approach, to which Gounder responded, “I took a look at the website. What I found was that there wasn’t any mention on the [job] descriptions of COVID-19 or vaccine requirements, you can’t filter by political party affiliation, you can’t search by vaccine requirements.”
She added that “you have to abide by local and state law, but, as such, these private entities can have legal standing to implement COVID 19 policies…[O]n the face it doesn’t look like this violates law or that it actually encourages anyone to violate law, as well.”
Bream noted another company, Canon Press, whose CEO Jess Hall said this to Fox Business Channel about Red Balloon: “I was very pleasantly surprised at the quality of candidates that I got for all the positions and the quantity, given that the thing had just started.”
Hall told Fox Business that he had even “received applications out of Canada from people who are trying to escape government health orders.”
Bream asked Patillo if having Canadian employees coming to the U.S. is workable. He responded by saying that it is definitely possible.
“They would have to go by all the visa requirements to be a guest worker here in America. They would have to, if they ever want to return home, abide by the local and national ordinances that are there. We have seen many borders shut down because of the various outbreaks so you would definitely need to prepare to spend a large amount of time here in the United States in case you’re not allowed back into your home country,” Patillo said. “As long as you are following all the international rules and state and local ordinances…..I think you can apply for a job and have employment here in the United States of America without running afoul of the law as long as you dot your i’s and cross your t’s.”
Gounder agreed: “They have to abide by state and local and federal law here, but private entities can establish these COVID-19 policies based on looking at the nature of the work they are doing, public exposure, and also how their employees are doing. Just look at the traffic here, and that actually really does matter just given all the traffic that they’re getting on this website.”
As of January 18, 2022, the Red Balloon easy-to-read job map indicates that there are more than 750 jobs posted from coast to coast. Founded in 2021, Red Balloon establishes the tone at the top of its home page:
“We connect employers who value freedom with employees who value it too. We envision a world beyond cancel culture, where employees are free to work… without fear that they will find themselves on the wrong side of their employer’s politics.”
“That’s it. No agendas, politics, or drama. Just work. Interested? Let’s create that world together,” the website declares.