Pandemic Panic Must Stop

[cullennz]

Iif it helps just give me a recorded example of someone being sacked for not under going a medical thing

Then link it to a normal job

 

[PhantomWolf]

You are the one making the claim. I’ve pointed out that employers in Australia can mandate vaccinations. It’s on you to prove they can’t.

But you won’t. And the NZ Bill of Rights is not relevant.

Now that he has clarified himself, CullenNZ is correct that in New Zealand such a mandate is a kettle of fish due to the Contracts Laws and NZ Bill of Rights, however, I also think that an Employer could get around those using Health and Safety Laws should a worker be in a position where they could potentially infect others if not vaccinated. They certainly could make them have to wear PPE such as a gown, mask, and face shield everywhere on-site and generally make their lives a little bit miserable until they decide that it's better to go and get the shots.

As I noted above, the retirement home company I do part-time work for, which is one of the bigger ones in NZ and Australia, is coming up with ways to "convince" as many workers as they can to take their Covid vaccine shots. Already we have rules in place that can make workers wear masks if they refuse to get a Flu Shot. In our case, any worker that has contact with the residents and does not have a vaccination is considered a health and safety risk to the residents. This gives us a little more leeway, but it's still a fine line and the company can't demand that people have the vaccine. Going forward though they can determine only to renew contracts for and hire new people who have their vaccinations, and in fact, that is the policy towards Flu Vaccines as of last year.

 

[lionking]

Now that he has clarified himself, CullenNZ is correct that in New Zealand such a mandate is a kettle of fish due to the Contracts Laws and NZ Bill of Rights, however, I also think that an Employer could get around those using Health and Safety Laws should a worker be in a position where they could potentially infect others if not vaccinated. They certainly could make them have to wear PPE such as a gown, mask, and face shield everywhere on-site and generally make their lives a little bit miserable until they decide that it's better to go and get the shots.

As I noted above, the retirement home company I do part-time work for, which is one of the bigger ones in NZ and Australia, is coming up with ways to "convince" as many workers as they can to take their Covid vaccine shots. Already we have rules in place that can make workers wear masks if they refuse to get a Flu Shot. In our case, any worker that has contact with the residents and does not have a vaccination is considered a health and safety risk to the residents. This gives us a little more leeway, but it's still a fine line and the company can't demand that people have the vaccine. Going forward though they can determine only to renew contracts for and hire new people who have their vaccinations, and in fact, that is the policy towards Flu Vaccines as of last year.

Well I think your laws need updating and quickly. In the link I posted above Australian organisations can mandate vaccinations.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Well I think your laws need updating and quickly. In the link I posted above Australian organisations can mandate vaccinations.

I have to disagree. No employer or Government should be able to demand that you undergo a medical procedure that you don't want to, and nor should you be able to be fired for not doing so. The potential for abuse is too much. What happens when Employers decide to demand women abort their pregnancies or lose their jobs? Now yes, that is an extreme case and reductio ad absurdum, but without the legal protections, it could also be plausible.

Having said that I am for vaccines, I got mine pretty much as soon as Group 2 was eligible to get them. I'm one of those "young" people that were "jumping the queue". I also recommend that everyone that can get one does so because it's the best way to get rid of the SAR-CoV-2 virus permanently.

However, hard cases make for bad laws and changing our laws to remove people's protection against employers and Governments forcing medical procedures onto people, that's a bad law regardless of the good intentions. As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

 

[angrysoba]

Iif it helps just give me a recorded example of someone being sacked for not under going a medical thing

Then link it to a normal job

Does this not count for some reason?

New Zealand’s customs agency has fired nine border workers who refused to get the Covid-19 vaccine. The country has required all frontline border workers to be vaccinated by the end of April.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...nine-border-workers-who-refused-covid-vaccine

 

[PhantomWolf]

Does this not count for some reason?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...nine-border-workers-who-refused-covid-vaccine

Well, technically they were let go because they were unable to do their jobs and there was nowhere else to move them to.

Note these parts...

New Zealand’s customs agency has fired nine border workers who refused to get the Covid-19 vaccine. The country has required all frontline border workers to be vaccinated by the end of April.

In February, the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, said the government would not be making the vaccine compulsory for frontline staff, and that those who declined the vaccine would be moved into backroom roles.

But no other work could be found to redeploy the nine workers who were in fixed term employment at the maritime border, Jacinda Funnell, Customs’ deputy chief executive for people and capability, said.

“We regret that these individuals have had to leave employment, and understand what a difficult situation this is for them,” Funnell said in a statement.

New Zealand’s unions have spoken out against the firing of workers who decline the vaccine, saying they should be redeployed instead. E tū union has said in their member FAQs: “We do not support mandatory vaccination and will not tolerate discrimination against workers who choose not to vaccinate.” The Public Service Association union has said unvaccinated border staff “should be redeployed, and their employment rights must be protected”.

 

[Delvo]

Since cullennz's original reasoning appears to have been about what people did or didn't sign up for in their employment contracts, I'll try to find the equivalent stuff for my job while I'm at work today to copy & paste for here...

I can already describe the basics that a foreigner might not know from memory before looking it up again, though. We don't have the kind of single, all-encompassing employment contract cullennz seems to have in mind. We have a Job Description document which defines the duties/responsibilities and working conditions such as how much time you need to spend standing/walking or outside exposed to the elements or lifting heavy objects. But I don't think we sign that. When we're offered a job here, we're given a separate job-offer document which we sign to accept the offer, and that might refer to the Job Description for details of the job being offered & accepted. Certainly, once you sign and start showing up & getting paid, you are held responsible for the contents of the Job Description, and that's the standard by which your job performance is assessed for later promotions, demotions, raises, or firing.

Job Descriptions nearly always include in the list of duties a line for "Other duties as the need arises", which enables the employer to adjust how things are done and still keep the same old employees to do them. Some employers' Job Descriptions do contain sections on vaccinations, but I can't say offhand whether they list them separately or whether, if they do, they add a line at the end like "Other vaccinations as the need arises". If they only list certain vaccinations and don't have a catch-all like that, then they probably have only the old standards like polio, not the new ones for a disease that wasn't out there when most Job Descriptions were written.

Most Job Descriptions might not mention vaccines or any other medical treatments one way or the other. But the fact that some do means they all could. And employers are free to modify them at any time. If/when they do, the employee is given plenty of warning time to choose whether to agree to the new one and stay or refuse it and leave. But the internal process for changing a Job Description takes time, so most probably haven't been changed in response to the current plague because there just hasn't been time.

 

[I Am The Scum]

I only see panic among the anti-vax/anti-mask crowd. With those folks, you get everything from Holocaust comparisons to the mark of the beast.

 

[crescent]

I only see panic among the anti-vax/anti-mask crowd. With those folks, you get everything from Holocaust comparisons to the mark of the beast.

That's how I see it too. Those of us who favor continuation of masks, max-work from home possibilities, max vaccination are not panicking - we're angry.

For those nations with good access to vaccines, most of the restrictions could have ended months ago, but for the idiot anti-vaccine people motivating each other to keep spreading the virus to each other so they can get sick and fill up the hospitals such that other people are denied treatment, such that people who can't get immunized or for whom the vaccines don't "stick" still get exposed.

It's infuriating.

Don't conflate anger with panic.

 

[JoeMorgue]

That's how I see it too. Those of us who favor continuation of masks, max-work from home possibilities, max vaccination are not panicking - we're angry.

People who are wrong have done a very good job at rebranding people getting pissed at them for being wrong as being "overly emotional."

 

[TurkeysGhost]

I only see panic among the anti-vax/anti-mask crowd. With those folks, you get everything from Holocaust comparisons to the mark of the beast.

Both sides are panicking.

One side is wearing masks and avoiding tight crowds.

The other side is comparing mask mandates to totalitarianism and are getting ready to mass murder their local school boards.

There's really not a difference

 

[8enotto]

I see panic in the people that want to be informed, want vaccines. Mostly those that live in parts of town with lots of deaths.

I have not seen rough treatment of those who won't mask or do minimal precautions to get by.

I don't like to mask but will if required. It's fairly easy to not go places it's required or where a lot of groups gather.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Some people may be overcautious about the dangers of Covid-19, but at least they aren't literally crapping their pants in public because they are taking goat dewormer prescribed to them by an internet "doctor".

https://twitter.com/AricToler/status/1430914726444339200

 

[JoeMorgue]

Again this one of the core personality traits we see these days.

Every house in your neighborhood is on fire. Half the people are denying the fire exists.

But the second one person from the sane side holds down a fire extinguisher for 35 seconds when it says to hold it down for 30 seconds on the side of the bottle, that's the "over-reaction" or "a panic" and the only thing they want to talk about it.

But don't dare say they are the fire's side, because they'll pitch a fit.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Current human rights law says no forced un wanted medical treatments.

Not sure why this is so new to you

I asked you to cite the actual law you speak of.

If you are talking about something like the Geneva Conventions they don't apply. No one is holding people down and injecting them. They can quit their jobs. Nurses who don't want flu vaccines can wear masks during flu season.

Not sure why you equate mandatory vaccines which are extremely commonplace with other vaccines with "forced unwanted medical treatments." But I think this is where your problem lies.

One has to have two MMRs to attend college. Kids have to have certain vaccines to attend school and if not they are not allowed in classes if any outbreaks occur. No vaccine, no entrance.

Health care facilities require staff to have TB skin tests (or the blood draw version), Tdaps because of the pertussis resurgence, MMRs and varicella vaccines or proof of past infection (a blood test for antibodies) and for rubella vaccine that is mandated if you are going to work anywhere near an OBGYN department. Hep B vaccines are optional unless you work in a liver transplant unit in which case they are mandatory.

And the Tdap mandate was introduced after the majority of workers had been working already so it wasn't something they signed up for at the time of hire.

It seems like some human rights issue to people like yourself and the fire fighters when I started department-wide TB tests. Now no one blinks an eye at either. Get over it. You don't have a law to stand on.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

If it helps.

NZ

Can post international if needed

https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1990/0109/latest/DLM225509.html

Yep, it helps because I can find the exceptions:

Justified limitations
Subject to section 4, the rights and freedoms contained in this Bill of Rights may be subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.

It's also a pretty sloppy law in that there are no definitions of terms like what a medical treatment is.

But it was tested in court and this was the finding:
Petition of Tobias Tahi: No Mandatory Vaccinations - Findings

We note that some people may not be able to work in some positions because they do not wish to be vaccinated. Some people may even have had to leave a job due to this. We appreciate that this could be a difficult experience, and we encourage employers and employees to approach such a situation in an open and reasonable way. However, we are told that there are some situations in which it is accepted that limitations on people’s freedoms are required. We consider that, given the risks to the health and safety of the wider population during the COVID-19 pandemic, such limitations may be appropriate.

FFS There is no law here saying they CAN

FFS, broaden your tunnel vision.

Thank you, apologies accepted.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

SG was talking about US employment law, which is nothing like NZ employment law.

But it turns out common sense isn't confined to the US.

I do appreciate your posts here though and I was talking about US law. I did ask for a cite of the NZ law and it turned out to say what I thought it would.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

The US doesn't have employment contracts as we understand them here.

We do have union contracts and the nurses union was unable to stop mandatory flu vaccinations because the hospitals offered an alternative the nurses found less acceptable for the most part. Few hospital workers refuse the vaccine now. It really is an infection control issue.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

We do have union contracts and the nurses union was unable to stop mandatory flu vaccinations because the hospitals offered an alternative the nurses found less acceptable for the most part. Few hospital workers refuse the vaccine now. It really is an infection control issue.

That varies wildly by location.

The hospital profiled by the NYTimes in their interviews in the Ozarks, Arkansas had a hospital with only about 50% vax rate among staff. There is no shortage of anti-vax and other conspiracy cranks in the US medical system.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

That varies wildly by location.

The hospital profiled by the NYTimes in their interviews in the Ozarks, Arkansas had a hospital with only about 50% vax rate among staff. There is no shortage of anti-vax and other conspiracy cranks in the US medical system.

Thanks for pointing that out. I do live on the west coast. We do have a significant anti-vaxxer crowd here but when you divvy them up into job categories not that many are health care providers.