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Unvaccinated employees, by choice, within your workforce.

  • Unvaccinated employees, by choice, within your workforce.

    Posted by Christopher Davies on 21 September 2021 at 12:00 pm

    Hello all,

    Hope you are all bearing up under the various lockdown levels we are having.

    As with all of you, Counties Energy are pondering the problem of unvaccinated employees returning to work, and the risk this may pose to our other employees, contractors and the wider public. Has any company taken a firm stance on what they will do?

    Bit of a thorny problem I know, and of course some people will not be able to have a vaccination because of medical conditions etc, however what should be done with those whose personal choice is not to be vaccinated.

    We have lots of opinion but no clear decision yet.

    Chris

    Christopher Davies replied 3 years, 4 months ago 3 Members · 4 Replies
  • 4 Replies
  • Stephen Small

    Member
    21 September 2021 at 12:17 pm

    Hi Chris

    As discussed the other week: here is the MBIE website to remove all the white noise.

    https://www.employment.govt.nz/leave-and-holidays/other-types-of-leave/coronavirus-workplace/covid-19-vaccination-and-employment/

    Taking a more objective philosophy = If you replaced ‘Covid’ with ‘influenza’ (which kills 500-1000 NZers annually) in your thought processes, would you not let anyone who didn’t have a flu jab back to work in case they infected others?

    This may seem to be a bit flippant, but I used a similar approach when we were sending workers overseas where there was dengue fever, zika virus, drug-resistant tuberculosis, and other assorted nasties.

    Cheers

    Stephen.

    • Christopher Davies

      Member
      21 September 2021 at 2:39 pm

      Thanks Stephen,

      I have some concerns about how the debate is being framed. I and all family are vaccinated but I am greatly concerned that those that do not want it are demonised.

      Thank you for the perspective.

  • Bill Doig

    Member
    21 September 2021 at 1:00 pm

    Chris, do you get the EMA newsletter? There was an employment dispute in there with a border Customs worker who refused to get vaccinated even though the law states they must be. Customs offered redeployment which was refused. They terminated their employment but the offer was left open that if they got vaccinated before the finishing date, they could have their original job back. Still refused. ERA backed Customs and their process. The workers union is now taking a high court appeal.

    You’ve got to be pretty sure if your going to force your workers to vaccinate of the risk. We’ve had a very high uptake but the next issue I guess is vaccinated staff not wanting to work with unvaccinated staff

    • Christopher Davies

      Member
      21 September 2021 at 2:41 pm

      Thanks Bill,

      You are correct. In the words of the song “There may be trouble ahead” Thank you for responding.

      Chris

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