Unions should back vaccine mandate

The law actually compels us to do everything possible to protect our employees from harm and ensure a safe workplace”. These are the words of Adrian Gore, founder and CEO of Discovery, shortly after his company said it would introduce mandatory vaccinations for its SA staff from the beginning of 2022.

One would think labour movements like Cosatu and Solidarity would rally behind Gore and other employers contemplating following in Discovery’s footsteps. Alas, both issued statements slamming the idea, with Cosatu’s parliamentary spokesperson Matthew Parks saying the employers have no right to impose whatever virtuous ideas they have on the workers.

Sure, in a free society workers should be free to make their own decisions about whether to get inoculated. No government or employer should force workers to take a vaccine.

Except in the case of a public health emergency, which we happen to have been thrown into in the form of Covid-19. More than 80,000 people have died since the respiratory disease hit our shores in early 2020, and the actual number is likely more than three times that.

Furthermore, there is indisputable scientific evidence that vaccines are highly effective at preventing severe illness. More than 30,000 lives can be saved if we are able to vaccinate more than 60% of our population over the coming months, according to actuarial projections for Discovery, which runs SA’s biggest health insurer.

It is in Cosatu’s interest to ensure workers are vaccinated to break the vicious cycle of lockdowns that have caused companies in several sectors to impose deep, and in some cases permanent, pay cuts or outright layoffs.

IT IS NOT IN THE INTEREST OF UNIONS TO HAVE THEIR MEMBERS LOSE THEIR JOBS

LEADERSHIP FAILURE

It is not in the interest of unions to have their members lose their jobs, or even their lives. The country is amid a humanitarian, social and economic crisis with an unemployment rate of more than 34%, and one would expect unions to support measures that will enable the economy to open and provide investors a degree of certainty.

A failure of political leadership to take the lead on the issue of vaccine mandates has pitted business against labour, a matter that looks set to ultimately be resolved by the courts.

For his part, President Cyril Ramaphosa is on record saying his government will encourage people to get Covid-19 vaccinations but will not force them. Employees may refuse vaccinations on medical and constitutional grounds. “No-one should be forced to be vaccinated,” Ramaphosa said in parliament recently. “Instead, we need to use the available scientific evidence to encourage — repeat encourage — people to be vaccinated to protect themselves, but also to protect people around them.”

There is also no serious push from health minister Joe Phaahla, who says the government will leave it up to businesses to decide on whether to force a vaccine mandate. He argued that legislating mandatory vaccinations to guard against Covid-19 should not be the preferred way forward and recommended “soft incentives” including greater collaboration with artists and sports stars as vaccination ambassadors to boost messaging.

Only 28% of SA has been vaccinated so far, according to statistics released by the health department on Friday, far from meeting the target of reaching 70% of the population by end-2021.

While we sympathise with workers’ right to choose, the choice to reject vaccines rests on wild conspiracy theories about people such as Bill Gates, and flawed anecdotes about side effects. Policies aimed at protecting other workers and educational campaigns about the historical benefits of vaccinations may convince some sceptics to voluntarily get jabbed, and can go with vaccine mandates.

To get a sense of what is at stake, an editorial by The Economist made sobering reading. It noted that the September 11 2001 terror attacks on the US had led to the deaths of almost 3,000 people. On the 20th anniversary, about 3,100 people in the US died because of Covid-19. It noted that a similar number perished on September 12, and the next day.

And the overwhelming majority of people who lose their lives are unvaccinated. The public health emergency justifies mandates so that life can turn to some normalcy.