High risk businesses in areas where the coronavirus is spreading are set to get the green light to order mandatory vaccinations for their staff in an update to federal advice being worked on by the workplace regulator.
The Fair Work Ombudsman confirmed on Friday it planned to update its guidance that had previously told the overwhelming majority of businesses that they could not instruct their staff to be vaccinated.
Businesses whose staff cannot work from home in coronavirus hotspots are likely to be told they can mandate vaccination.Credit:Brook Mitchell
A source familiar with the work said high-risk businesses in areas where the coronavirus is spreading could be told the increased rates of transmission and illness justified mandating vaccines for their staff as more supply becomes available.
Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane are all in lockdown but cases are rising fastest in Western Sydney, with many occurring at essential workplaces that cannot be shut down.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian told reporters in Sydney on Friday she backed employers on vaccination.
“Workplaces have the right to mandate vaccination, if they decide they have a particular policy of who is allowed to work in their workplace under a pandemic during a lockdown, that is a matter for them,” Ms Berejiklian said.
But with vaccine supplies, especially of Pfizer, still constrained in pockets across the country, a new document quietly published by the federal Health Department underscores the challenges for mandatory vaccines, even where they are backed by explicit public health orders.
National cabinet agreed in late June to mandate vaccines for aged care staff by mid-September, but the document says that could be delayed for whole regions where vaccine supply is limited.
“In some cases, a temporary exemption may apply to a region where supply of a COVID-19 vaccine was delayed or incomplete,” the document says. In “a very narrow set of circumstances” individual workers may also get exemptions if they cannot find a vaccine despite all residential aged care workers being given priority access to Pfizer.
States and territories are responsible for implementing public health orders to give legal effect to national cabinet’s decision but the Health Department statement says workers’ religious, political or personal objections to vaccination will likely be disregarded.
Nurses, personal carers, receptionists, cooks, maintenance staff and volunteers engaged by aged care homes will all be covered by the order but visiting tradespeople, doctors, pharmacists and hairdressers are among those outside its scope.
A spokeswoman for the Fair Work Ombudsman, which regulates workplaces, said it was updating its information as coronavirus vaccines were rolled out.
“Further updates will be available soon” at its website, the spokeswoman said in a statement.
“Our information will be guided by applicable laws and judicial decisions, enforceable government directions (such as public health orders) and advice issued by relevant Commonwealth, state and territory agencies.”
The Fair Work Ombudsman’s statements on vaccines are only advisory and it is up to individual businesses to test the limits of industrial law that allows firms to issue “lawful and reasonable” instructions to their employees.
Food manufacturer SPC became the first major Australian company to announce it would require its staff to be vaccinated, with the policy coming into effect in November in an illustration of the time businesses may have to give their staff to get a jab.
Industrial commissioners have twice upheld employers’ decision to fire workers who refused a flu vaccination, once in aged care and once in childcare, but no coronavirus vaccination cases have gone to court.
Discrimination law also applies to mandatory vaccinations.
Unions have been wary of letting individual businesses decide whether to get their staff vaccinated, arguing that supply and paid time off are the keys to increasing vaccination rates.
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