Coronavirus vaccine headache for business

The looming problem for employers is that some workers may refuse to work alongside colleagues who have not been vaccinated. Picture: Getty

On top of the debilitating financial and psychological impact of stop-start lockdowns imposed by premiers, the nation’s business leaders face a difficult workplace challenge as the COVID-19 vaccine is rolled out. As Ewin Hannan wrote in The Deal, workplace vaccination shapes as a legal minefield for businesses, which have a duty of care to all employees and an obligation not to expose their customers to potential harm. But without a public health order, most employers are thought unlikely to force employees to vaccinate against COVID-19. Public unease stirred by repeated lockdowns and conflicting signals about the availability and efficacy of vaccines to variants of the COVID-19 virus make the issue even more fraught.

A Newspoll conducted for The Australian revealed 75 per cent of voters said they would definitely or probably get vaccinated. The willingness to get vaccinated was spread evenly across voting groups of the major parties and the Greens. Doubts were strongest among minor party and One Nation voters, with almost half being firmly opposed to getting vaccinated and believing no one should be required to get it. The fact one in four said they would refuse vaccination or were undecided about it indicates a significant level of scepticism in the community. A petition to federal parliament calling for protections from discrimination for people who chose not to have a COVID-19 vaccination received more than 20,000 signatures despite not being widely publicised.

The Weekend Australian believes vaccination is an essential response to the pandemic and that vaccines judged to be safe by medical authorities must be made widely available as quickly as possible. Australia can learn valuable lessons from vaccination programs already under way in other countries, but the government should neither delay a vaccine rollout nor limit the range of vaccine options available to the public. Nonetheless, employers are in an invidious position in how to treat the issue with their employees. Concerns span the gamut of workplace regulation including industrial relations, workplace health and safety, anti-discrimination and workers’ compensation. Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox says given all of the legal issues, most employers are likely to take the view that they will not go beyond encouraging employees to be vaccinated unless a public health order is issued making vaccines compulsory in a particular sector. Without direction, it will be left to the courts and tribunals to determine what rights employers have to force employees to vaccinate or to work with colleagues who, for whatever reason, refuse to do so.

Confusion over worker rights and vaccination further complicates the challenge of getting more people back into the office to revive the flagging fortunes of CBDs. The headache looming for employers is that some workers may refuse to work alongside colleagues who have not been vaccinated, while others may refuse to vaccinate despite being barred from the workplace unless they do so. Already, the issue is causing tensions between the commonwealth and states. Industrial Relations Minister Christian Porter says state health orders will be the primary tool to drive vaccination rates. Others are calling for the commonwealth to take the lead.

We agree with business leaders that a consistent national approach is needed. But rather than more regulation and proscription in such a highly charged arena, the best remedy will be knowledge. It is up to government and the medical community to ensure that vaccines are safe and effective to use and to make this the dominant message in the public mind. A successful vaccination program should avoid the necessity for kneejerk political responses to isolated outbreaks. Overdramatising events in terms of clusters, lockdowns and the availability and efficacy of vaccines will breed public mistrust and make business confidence more brittle and the economic recovery more difficult to sustain.