FRANCHISE BASICS
Vaccines in the workplace Can we mandate the Covid vaccine in the workplace? JENNA PAULIN Now Actually
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his is the million-dollar question at the moment across the Australian employment landscape. With so much uncertainty in the marketplace as to what businesses can and cannot do, we’ll unpack some of the key points for you. Where do businesses start? In short, it depends on the type of business and the industry they are in. The Australian Prime Minister at time of writing has confirmed that the vaccine will not be mandated across the country. So how do businesses tackle this issue? The Fair Work Ombudsman has provided some guidance on the matter but there are still a number of factors to be considered before a business can make the decision as to whether they can mandate the vaccine. It comes with no surprises that there is not a specific law that requires an employee to receive a vaccination. Businesses should do a case by case assessment as to whether or not mandating the vaccination in their business is “lawful and reasonable”. There are specific circumstances where this doesn’t apply, but it is best you check with your industry body. Fair Work has stipulated that for a direction to be lawful, it needs to comply with any Employment Contract, Modern Award or Enterprise Agreement, and any commonwealth, state or territory law that
applies (for example, an anti-discrimination law or OH&S law). There are several considerations to make when deciding if you can or should make the vaccine mandatory. Advice needs to be sought from an HR, legal, safety and operational perspective to enable a business to make an informed decision. Such considerations might be: • the nature and industry of each workplace (for example, the extent to which employees need to work in public facing roles, whether social distancing is possible and whether the business is providing an essential service) • the extent of community transmission of Covid in the location where the
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direction is to be given, including the risk of transmission of the Delta variant among employees, customers or other members of the community the effectiveness of vaccines in reducing the risk of transmission or serious illness, including the Delta variant work health and safety obligations each employee’s circumstances, including their duties and the risks associated with their work whether employees have a legitimate reason for not being vaccinated (for example, a medical reason) vaccine availability.
NOV/JAN 2021-2022 | 62 | WWW.FRANCHISEBUSINESS.COM.AU
