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BusinessLive reports that Department of Employment and Labour (DEL) Minister Thulas Nxesi has published new rules for managing Covid-19 in the workplace that will come into effect when the national state of disaster is lifted.
The development is an important part of the government’s efforts to ensure there is a coherent legislative framework in place to help manage the coronavirus pandemic when it ends the national state of disaster, brought into effect two years ago. The government is under growing pressure to end the state of disaster. Earlier this week the state of disaster was extended until 15 April. The Code of Practice for Managing Exposure to Sars-CoV-2 in the Workplace 2022 was published by Nxesi in the Government Gazette on Tuesday. It takes the rights and obligations of employers and employees set out in rules that were brought into effect by Nxesi in terms of regulations to the Disaster Act and makes them rights and obligations under the Labour Relations Act instead. However, the new code goes a step further, strengthening the rights of employers to request the vaccination status of employees, and limiting the grounds employees can use to refuse to get vaccinated to medical conditions. Jacqui Reed, senior associate at Herbert Smith Freehills, commented: “These regulations are trying to deal with the arguments that have come up in recent CCMA cases”
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Tamar Kahn at BusinessLive
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