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Mandate to cover more of workforce

Thomas Manch and Louisa Steyl

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says the Government will mandate the Covid-19 vaccine for any worker of a business that requires a vaccine certificate at entry.

Yesterday, Ardern said Cabinet had decided to place the mandate on businesses, meaning restaurants, cafe´s, gyms, and other ‘‘close-proximity’’ businesses which choose to operate with greater freedoms, while requiring vaccine certification, will have to comply.

‘‘The more people who are vaccinated the safer we all are. That gives us options, and the ability to keep people safe without having to use some of the more blanket restrictions that we’ve used in the past,’’ Ardern said.

A person’s vaccination status will become increasingly relevant to how they can participate in usual activities under the Government’s proposed ‘‘traffic light’’ system, which will replace the alert level system when each District Health Board reaches 90 per cent vaccination levels.

Under the system, businesses will be able to operate without restrictions on capacity or social distancing if they agree to require customers to prove they have been vaccinated through the vaccine certification system the Government is developing.

If there is a high-level of Covid-19 risk, and the system is at the ‘‘red light’’ setting, businesses that don’t require vaccine certification will not be allowed to operate, whereas businesses that require their customers to be vaccinated will operate with limited restrictions. Retail businesses have been excluded from this vaccination certification system.

Ardern said ‘‘people would raise questions’’ if the Government introduced a vaccine certification system that could require customers to be vaccinated, but did not require workers in those businesses to be vaccinated.

Further mandates were being considered by the Government, including for public sector workers with public-facing jobs.

Workplace Relations Minister Michael Wood said, under these changes, up to 40 per cent of the country’s workforce could be covered by vaccine mandates.

The Government earlier this month decided it would mandate Covid-19 vaccinations for health and disability sector workers, teachers and early learning staffers, by December 1 and January 1 respectively. Mandates were placed on managed isolation and quarantine workers and airport and port staff earlier in the year.

Modern Mens Barber owner Liza Dermody was unsure how she felt about the extended vaccine mandate in the minutes following the announcement.

She was about to get on the phone with some of her staff who had been reluctant to get the Covid-19 vaccine to understand why, she said, before working on a "game plan" for the future.

"Some of them are more vulnerable

than others, which worries me,’’ Dermody said.

She said she respected the Government’s position, but on the other hand, she felt her staff should have a choice.

Like many industries, hers was facing a staffing shortage, and while Dermody had been working hard to train barbers, she feared she may lose staff who did not want to be vaccinated.

‘‘I feel like this Government keeps adding layers of stress. It’s hard not to be resentful,’’ she said.

Invercargill Licensing Trust chief executive Chris Ramsay shared Dermody’s staffing concerns.

‘‘We would potentially stand to lose some good people. We’ll have to manage it carefully.’’

Friday’s announcement of a traffic light framework for managing Covid-19 was a good indication that this was the direction Government wanted businesses to move towards, Ramsay said, commending Government on its commitment to offer more guidance.

He would be meeting with his boards and executives this week to discuss how ILT would approach the situation.

Jono Bond, who works at Advance Fitness in Invercargill, said all his colleagues had been vaccinated, so they weren’t worried about the mandate.

‘‘We just did the right thing, unconsciously,’’ he said.

However, he was worried about potentially losing members who would be required to present a vaccine passport to visit the gym – some of whom had been members for many years.

‘‘We’d be sad to lose them,’’ he said.

Fiordland Business Association chairman Nathan Benfell said the mandates had been under discussion during a meeting yesterday, and the consensus had been to wait for more direction from industry bodies and Government.

Law changes would make things clearer, he said: ‘‘It’s quite a difficult task for small businesses to work out where they stand, legally.’’

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2021-10-27T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-10-27T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://stuff.pressreader.com/article/281479279624315

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