Vaccination: mandated and/or incentivised

[pErvinalia]

Says the guy insulting.

[JimC]

Here is a good example of how requirements to be vaccinated (in this case to work at Sydney building sites) can sway the vaccine hesitant to get the jab:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-07/ ... /100359114

Construction workers in Sydney are ready to pick up the tools with the latest announcement around COVID-19 safe workplaces.

Vaccine hesitant workers are now booking their appointments after Deputy Premier John Barilaro announced that vaccinated workers will be allowed back on site next week.

Stephen Younan, owner of a construction company from Bexley North, said he was unsure about the safety of the vaccine, but the latest announcement has proven to him booking a jab is the right thing to do.

"There's so much conspiracy theories. Made up stories, that you can't really get away from," he said.

"Yeah I was worried going out to work every day, it was a risk that I had to take to provide for my family. Now I 100 per cent want the vaccine, and I want all my guys to be vaccinated."

"Construction workers from the affected LGAs will be added to the list of authorised workers allowing them to work on unoccupied construction sites in Greater Sydney if they meet the vaccination conditions."

Jordan Bourizk, 21, is one of those workers.

He lives in Yagoona, in the Canterbury-Bankstown LGA, and was suspicious of vaccines.

"I've never really liked them, my whole life," he said.

"All my friends around me are the same, everyone is different, but there was something I don't know about vaccines."

Now with the announcement Mr Bourizk said he will be looking into his options.

"In the next few days I'll be seeing if I can get it, if it means I can work, yeah I'll get it."

"Getting tested every three days has been really annoying to be honest it's a good hour I have to waste in the morning and when you're at a site and your mask slips or you take a drink everyone looks at you weird because you're from a hotspot."

Making it easier to be vaccinated is also critical:

The head of the Australian Construction Association Jon Davies said sites will go one step further by allowing vaccination at workplaces.

"We are working with the Department of Health to improve access by enabling vaccinations at construction sites," Mr Davies said.

[JimC]

An article in the Age newspaper about people planning music festivals in Victoria later in the year:

https://www.theage.com.au/national/vict ... 58gkg.html

“We are going to prioritise vaccinated people. The first ticket batch is going to vaccinated people. There’s children who are not vaccinated who come to our festival and they need to be protected.

“If the government’s not going to make it [mandatory], I’m up for businesses doing it.

“[The unvaccinated] will be the ones staying at home, we’re the ones going out and going to the party. If you want to come to the party, get a vaccination.”

[JimC]

Legal issues emerge in the debate about mandatory vaccination in Australia:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-13/ ... /100373416

If you're an aged care worker, you have to get a COVID vaccine.

Vaccinations are also mandatory for most people working on the quarantine front line.

But what about everyone else? Can your boss make it mandatory for you to get immunised?

The Fair Work Office (FWO) has updated its guidelines for employers and their workers in an effort to make the legally "grey" area a little clearer.

The black and white cases of mandatory vaccinations

Some workers are required by law, mostly state-based public health orders, to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

It varies from state to state, but generally, aged care workers, quarantine workers, some transportation and airport workers and some health care workers fall into this category.

Some states already have these public health orders in place, others intend to do so by mid-September.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison insists there will not be an expansion of mandatory vaccinations beyond those specific roles.

"We do not have a mandatory vaccination policy in this country," he said last week.

"We do not have that. We are not proposing to have that. That is not changing."

Vaccination can also be mandatory if it has been agreed to as part of an enterprise bargaining agreement or other work contract. Some health and allied health professionals fall into this category.

The third category is where it becomes grey. Employers can "direct" employees to get vaccinated where it is "lawful and reasonable" to do so.

What does 'lawful and reasonable' mean?

Good question. Ultimately, only a court can answer that.

But the FWO is now offering some additional guidance.

Previously, it advised the "overwhelming majority of employers should assume they can't" mandate vaccination.

But the new advice states that an employer "may in certain circumstances be required to direct employees to get vaccinated" in order to comply with "work health and safety laws".

It has outlined four tiers of work to help assess where it might be '"awful and reasonable" to mandate vaccination.

1.Tier 1 work — employees interact with high-risk people (eg border control, hotel quarantine)
2.Tier 2 work — employees interact with vulnerable people (eg health care or aged care workers)
3.Tier 3 work — employees with public interaction (eg. retail workers at essential stores)
4.Tier 4 work — employees with minimal face-to-face interaction
Tiers 1 and 2 are likely to be covered by public health orders or workplace contracts.

The FWO says it's "unlikely to be reasonable" to make Tier 4 workers get vaccinated.

So where does that leave tier 3 workers?

If there is no community transmission of coronavirus for some time, mandating vaccination is "less likely to be reasonable" and vice versa.

But it must always be determined on a "case-by-case" basis.

"The coronavirus pandemic doesn't automatically make it reasonable for employers to direct employees to be vaccinated against the virus," the FWO advises.

And employers "must consider their obligations and responsibilities under anti-discrimination laws".

It's far from the clarity employers were hoping for.

"I think that's been left to individual businesses just to decide," said the Australian Retailers Association chief Paul Zahra.

"It hasn't been tested in the law and I don't think most businesses want to be facing litigation, potentially."

What say do workers have in all this?

Employers are required to work with their staff before changing policies around vaccinations.

The updated advice outlines that employers must:

Consult with employees and health and safety representatives
Give employees and health and safety representatives "reasonable opportunity to express their views"
Take into consideration anti-discrimination laws may apply
If they do make vaccinations mandatory, employers should cover workers' travel costs and give them paid time off for their vaccination appointments (if they fall in work hours).

In most circumstances, workers can not take sick leave to get a vaccination, but the advice from the FWO says there may be some exceptions.

However, workers can take paid sick leave if they're unwell after being vaccinated.

What if a worker doesn't want to get vaccinated?

If you refuse to get vaccinated and you're a tier 1 or 2 worker, employers can ask you why and ask for evidence of why you're refusing.

If there are valid reasons, such as existing medical conditions, your employer should consider alternative jobs for you.

Disciplinary action can be taken, but the FWO notes "employers should not take disciplinary action lightly".

If you're vaccinated but one of your colleagues isn't, it's "unlikely" you can refuse to go to work. But only if it's "lawful and reasonable" to compel you to.

I'm still not clear...

In short: you can do it if it is "lawful and reasonable".

To figure out if it is "lawful and reasonable", you need to get legal advice.

That may be beyond the means and capacity of many employers, which is why business groups were hoping the federal government would offer legal protection.

"It is a failure of national leadership," said Labor frontbencher Catherine King, calling on the Prime Minister to work with businesses and unions to sort out rules for high-risk industries.

But with a philosophical objection to mandating medical procedures, the Coalition has no appetite for opening the door to mandatory vaccinations any further.

[JimC]

Another good article, this time in the Melbourne Age newspaper about the various arguments around mandatory vaccinations:

https://www.theage.com.au/national/mand ... 58idm.html

As the nation proceeds – but still at an agonisingly slow pace – towards the targets of having 70% and 80% of those 16 and over fully vaccinated, the next big debate is about making the jab compulsory in workplaces.

This would give the community greater protection and accelerate the lifting of restrictions and opening the economy.

Dig deeper, however, and it’s a fraught issue, full of political, legal, practical and ethical complexities.

From the start, Scott Morrison has insisted his government would not make taking the vaccine mandatory.

It’s not just a matter of the anti-vaxxers, who are only a small, albeit noisy, minority.

It’s that many in the Coalition’s ranks and, even more important, among its base would be totally against compulsion. A fair number of these have already been angered by the extent of restrictions, believing civil rights have been excessively compromised.

So when individual businesses, notably the food processor SPC, started down the road of requiring workers to be vaccinated, Morrison last week had the solicitor-general brief national cabinet on the confusing legalities. He also said neither the federal government nor any state or territory intended to legislate to give employers the legal safety they would like.

“We are not going to seek to impose a mandatory vaccination program by the government by stealth,” he said this week.

A very hot potato has been left firmly in the hands of individual businesses.

They are in an awkward position. The advantage of having their workplaces vaccinated is obvious. But the legal position is unclear. In the absence of a public health order, they would be relying on directions to employees being judged lawful and reasonable. Inevitably, there would be court challenges.

In advice published on Thursday, the Fair Work Ombudsman said: “In some cases, employers may be able to require their employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Employers should exercise caution if they’re considering making COVID-19 vaccinations mandatory in their workplace and get their own legal advice.”

ACTU secretary Sally McManus doubts the legality, short of public health orders, of employers forcing vaccinations and says support and encouragement for employees is the better way to go.

Even apart from any court challenge, some businesses would face division among their workers, and potential dismissals and voluntary departures. When Western Australia made vaccination compulsory for quarantine workers – surely a very reasonable requirement – it lost some of them.

Simon Longstaff, head of The Ethics Centre, points to the distinction between vaccination being compulsory or a condition for doing something.

Vaccination could be a condition for a person working in a company, just like donning safety equipment is for certain jobs, Longstaff says. “If they are not prepared to accept the condition, then they may choose not to work for an employer imposing such a condition.”

But “conditions” form a continuum. For example, having to be vaccinated to work in a hospital is very different to the jab being required to keep a job that involves minimal risk.

This takes us to the various ways of skinning the cat – and to vaccine “passports”. The government already has the beginnings of a vaccine passport scheme, although it won’t use that name – because its “base” doesn’t like the idea. It calls it a certificate.

The vaccine passport is the iron-fist-in-velvet-glove approach to imposing vaccinations.

Once we reach the 70% or 80%, and people are registered as being vaccinated, evidence of having had the jab will be the gateway to freedoms. Looked at the other way, lack of the passport would restrict what people could do.

A vaccine passport could be as necessary for international travel as a national passport. At a more mundane level, it could be required to eat at a restaurant just as, currently, people are told to sign in. Similarly, it could be needed to attend music or sporting events. Or to enter Parliament House.

Forcing people, directing or indirectly, to have a COVID vaccination involves sometimes competing rights – your right to choose whether to accept a vaccine, my right to be safe in the workplace and the community’s right to protection from a very serious and potentially fatal disease.

It is not as simple as “no jab no pay” for the vaccination of children, which only denies government benefits. In the COVID-19 case we’re talking, in the extreme, about people’s access to jobs and livelihoods.

So where are we left?

When people are dealing with the vulnerable – most obviously in aged care – the rights of those being cared for clearly come ahead of the workers’ right to choose. National cabinet was correct in supporting the mandating of vaccinations of the aged care workforce.

Workers in quarantine, disability, and health care are, or should be, treated similarly by whoever employs them.

There are many other “frontline” workers, including those in supermarkets and hospitality. While this gets us back to the compulsion issue, it could be tackled, especially in occupations where there is high turnover, by giving preference in hiring to the vaccinated. This would be harsh, but less harsh than firing workers.

When everyone eligible has been offered the vaccine, we will have a better idea of the size of the minority of unvaccinated people we’re dealing with.

It’s important during the rollout to minimise this pool – to make sure as many as possible of the apathetic have been motivated and the hesitant persuaded.

The latest government “vaccine sentiment” survey, released on Thursday, had 79 per cent of Australians intending to get vaccinated, or already done. According to rollout chief Lieutenant-General John Frewen, of the rest 14 per cent were making up their minds and only 7 per cent were saying they won’t get vaccinated.

Incentives may be helpful, although they shouldn’t be as expensive or extensive as Anthony Albanese’s $300 for everyone vaccinated. Much better advertising is also needed, including niche campaigns where vaccination is below average.

The Australian community has proved remarkably compliant during the coronavirus pandemic. Some hesitancy about AstraZeneca notwithstanding, we are lagging in our vaccination rate not primarily because of the public’s resistance or reluctance but because of the faults in the rollout. With improvements in that, and a combination of the positive and negative incentives of the vaccine passport, we can probably reach a vaccination level high enough to keep the community safe without having to go further down the road of compulsion.

Michelle Grattan is professorial fellow at the University of Canberra. This article was first published on The Conversation.

What she did not mention was some variant on the Biden policy for Federal employees. If you are fully vaccinated, then fine. If not, then your working conditions become somewhat onerous - mainly compulsory mask wearing and the need to be continually tests.

[Scot Dutchy]

We dont need them.

[JimC]

We dont need them.

What is "them"?

[Scot Dutchy]

Mandatory vaccinations. Another Ozland problem.

[JimC]

Not even for health care workers?

Or is your assumption that people in jobs with health risks will overwhelmingly do the right thing and get vaccinated?

[pErvinalia]

They're Dutch, of course they'll do the right thing. No Dutch person has ever done the wrong thing.

[Scot Dutchy]

Not even for health care workers?

Or is your assumption that people in jobs with health risks will overwhelmingly do the right thing and get vaccinated?

Health care workers were the first and almost to a man was vaccinated. Take up here is about 80% in the general public. Even arso and foreign districts (muslim areas) have been targetted and the take up has been good. The over twelve's also have responded well with almost 70% being vaccinated.
Mandatory vaccinations have not been required. We live to close to each other.

[JimC]

Don't get me wrong, the optimum situation for any society would be an overwhelming voluntary take up of vaccination, and the closer to that we get, the better. But in at least some critical occupations, mandatory vaccinations may be necessary.

[Seabass]

Anti-Vaxxers Go Off the Rails at San Diego County Meeting: ‘Heil Fauci’

A San Diego County Board of Supervisors meeting descended into chaos Tuesday as anti-vaccine activists gathered to make their opinions on vaccine mandates known. According to local conservative outlet KUSI, several groups—ReOpen San Diego, Let Them Breathe, and San Diego Rise Up—gathered outside to protest and inside to give speeches demanding that the board bar employers and businesses from requiring proof of vaccination for employment or services. A man who identified himself as Matt Baker invoked both “the wind of time”—he was whistling into the microphone—and the Nuremberg Codes in angry arguments that left him red-faced. Baker said to the board of supervisors, “You are about to open a pit of hell. You do not get a vaccine passport put on us. You know as the population who’s in control, you know as politicians—once you get a power, you never relinquish it. Do you think that the four feet of marble that holds you above in this chamber will help you from the fate of humanity which you are unleashing? No! It won’t! Your children and your children’s children will be subjugated! They will be asked, ‘How many vaccines have you had? Have you been a good little Nazi? Heil Fauci! Heil Fauci! Heil Fauci!’” He then held up a copy of the Nuremberg Codes, accusing the supervisors of being in violation of international human rights law.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/anti-vaxx ... heil-fauci

video clips of some of these lunatics here:
https://twitter.com/TheActivatedPod/sta ... 48768?s=20

[laklak]

Quite a few U.S. employers are requiring vaccinations for at least some of their people. There are a few quitting their jobs.

[Sean Hayden]

Fear's a killer.