Labour organisation Cosatu has called on employers to address the issues of workers regarding their reluctance to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, instead of firing them for refusing.
The labour federation says it is in favour of people getting jabbed but is wary of vaccine mandates. This comes after an employee at Gold Rush group was fired for failing to comply with the company’s vaccine policy, and then went on to lose a bid to overturn the decision at the CCMA.
Cosatu’s parliamentary coordinator, Matthew Parks says employers should address employees concerns.
“We appreciate that change is difficult, but I think our approach as organised labour Cosatu, Fedusa, Nactwu, is to encourage everybody to do it. Let’s find ways of addressing people’s concerns, but once we introduce dismissal, it introduces tension in the workplace. I think also for us as organised labour, this is not just about workers, all of society needs to go out and get vaccinated. Only a quarter of South Africa, 40 million persons out of the 60 million people are workers.”
Legal opinion on CCMA’s ruling against employee dismissed for refusing to get vaccinated was fair:
