Workplace dilemma building
EMPLOYERS’ Federation of PNG says the Delta mutation of the Coronavirus (Covid-19) is likely to grip the country soon and vaccination in the workplace is a significant issue for employers to navigate, particularly while mixed messages from political and advisory groups continue to fuel anti-vaccination rumours.
President David Doig said: “Employers are now faced with managing the risks of the highly transmissible Delta variant and may need to re-think their strategies for managing the associated risks.
“There is an obligation to protect the health and wellbeing of their employees while at work, and therefore, should manage the risk of the Covid-19 transmissions in the workplace.
“While vaccination prevents death, and in most cases, hospitalisation, it does not prevent transmissibility, meaning a vaccinated person could go to work, catch the virus from an unvaccinated employee, go home and pass it on to their nine-week-old child or an elderly family member.
“This is clearly an untenable situation.
“Employers are potentially facing a scenario of legal challenges either by the vaccinated or the unvaccinated, depending on whether the employer allows the unvaccinated into work or not.
“They face being closed down for two weeks if the virus is detected at work.
“They face losing key staff, and also face the possibility of vaccinated workers refusing to work alongside the unvaccinated.
“Vaccination can prevent the spread of the Covid-19, but the courts may not accept that it is a reasonable requirement for all employees across the board to be vaccinated, and any decision to implement mandatory vaccination, policies may come with a legal risk.
“Our members have grappled with some of these considerations when looking at the fairness of terminating employees for refusing to participate in mandatory vaccination programmes.
“Given what we have seen in recent outbreaks of the delta variant, and the relative ineffectiveness of previous methods of infection control such as social distancing, it’s easy to see how these considerations may need to apply to the Covid-19 vaccinations.
“Vaccination as a mandatory condition of entry to workplaces.”
3 comments
This is democratic country so don’t force the citizens of this beautiful country to vaccinated. Go to your own country or somewhere else and force them to vaccinate.
If we Papua New Guineans have faith and belief in God deep in our hearts just like our ancestors why vaccinated, having saying that this virus sickness is a man made & can not destroy the innocent people of God.
This is a bit sensitive, but before we make any comments, we have to weight out the options from employee and employers perspective.
Example, if an employee doesn’t want to get vaccinated and during the course of employment he contracts this covid19, who will be responsible for his medical bills when he/she is isolated. If the company doesn’t meet any cost relating to this covid19, who will? If it is the employee, then who will suffer in this case.
If the operation has to shut down due to high number of covid19 cases within the business, the company will lose it’s employees, meaning they will lose out and profit, that means they will not pay employees their salaries/wages.
I know government employees will not be affected, church workers, students but remember most of their salaries/church assistance/free educaction comes from taxes and if industries have to close or shut down because of covid19, it will still affect their employment too, so be mindful when commenting.
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