SPC shows brave leadership with vaccine demand
SPC chairman Hussein Rifai and his CEO Robert Giles should each be given an AO. The award is for service to the community and service to the economy.
The canned-food producer based in regional Victoria will become the first non-health organisation to ban all 450 workers from the workplace, be it factory or in admin, unless they are fully vaccinated by November.
Their brave leadership is at the vanguard of business pushing its way out of lockdown. And it’s not just because mandating vaccines in the workplace risks costly court battles as the industrial relations system waits for a precedent - in February, Australian Industry Group chief Innes Willox told The Australian: “This is going to be the workplace relations issue of the year without a doubt.”
No. It is because of the strength of the positive messaging coming from Rifai and Giles on why it makes so much sense for an employee to be vaccinated.
Rifai, his wife and mother-in-law have already had the vaccine and his two children in their 20s are booked in. He is loud and proud about putting the smallest of risk in perspective. “The risk is one per million. People still die with a seatbelt on, so do we stop driving cars? It’s not a matter of opinion. This is science. It works.”
The threat to younger people from the Delta virus obviously strengthens the argument for mandatory vaccination. Rifai says the government’s decision to release the AstraZenca vaccine for anyone over 18 was the trigger for the SPC board’s decision. The message from the Doherty Institute’s Professor Jodie McVernon affirmed the view.
Companies in Australia are required to provide a safe and healthy workplace and Covid-19 is making that increasingly difficult. Safe Work Australia’s work and safety guidelines released in February are woolly at best.
For example, employers may have to pay out workers’ compensation if employees contract Covid in their workplace. Yet mandating workers to be vaccinated brings liability risk to businesses. And requiring visitors or customers to bring proof of vaccination may give rise to privacy and discrimination issues.
It is hard to imagine SPC’s previous owners, the global giant Coca Cola Amatil, which sold the business in 2019, taking such an early step. But for Hussein Rifai, the decision was simple: the company sees itself as part of the essential workforce, just like aged care and other frontline workers, putting tins in supermarkets when supply chains crashed. It is therefore eminently reasonable to put to employees that to protect them and other workers, vaccination is required.
The chairman says he had a very good reception when management communicated with employees, and the unions were being consulted.
To chief executive Robert Giles, SPC is setting the example. “Australian companies must go further by rapidly vaccinating their staff. By taking proactive steps now, we are shoring up our company for the future. We firmly believe that it will be manufacturers and innovators like SPC who will help drive Australia’s post-Covid economic recovery.”
Too right.
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