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Miningmx writes that SA’s mining sector believes it can vaccinate between 2.5 and three million people against Covid-19 infections. Using its extensive healthcare facilities, digital database, and outreach into mining-related communities, there’s no reason to suppose this won’t be achieved.
The impending vaccination programme, however, is beset by complications. Firstly, to effectively vaccinate millions of people, the mining sector will have to replicate the public-private cooperation with unions and the government that typified the return to work post the hard lockdown of March last year. Framing this cooperation, however, will be the question of occupational law, specifically the issue of anti-vax opposition. Amid the thousands of employees who will take a jab, especially following a successful programme of popular education, there may be the vocal minority that will not. ENSAfrica, a firm of attorneys, is trying to figure out how mining firms can roll out vaccination policies in the workplace when SA doesn’t have a bespoke vaccination rollout law, unlike other jurisdictions. Unfair discrimination raises its head as a potential danger in the event a mining company takes action – redeployment or even dismissal – against an anti-vaxxer. “If the company can establish that it’s part of the job to have a vaccination, then it’s something a company could defend. If not, a company would have to defend whether its policy (on Covid-19 vaccinations) was rational. If not, it could be open to an unfair dismissal claim,” said ENSAfrica’s Balindile Shezi. “It really is a balancing exercise. The over-riding principle will be the overall safety of the business or if the business was threatened,” Shezi added.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by David McKay at Miningmx
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