Major employers in Australia stick to vaccine mandate
- Claire Lee
Some of Australia’s largest employers will still continue the mandate that workers need to be vaccinated against COVID-19, even after state government mandates are abolished.
Such businesses include supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths, Virgin Australia, Telstra and Commonwealth Bank, as confirmed by The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.
New South Wales is removing most of its vaccination mandates next month, although the Victorian government has not announced an end to its vaccination mandates.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has noted that there could be a possible end to all pandemic-related health orders in July.
Meanwhile, education providers and school principals are also mulling the decision on whether they should scrap vaccination mandates on teachers once government orders expire, according to The Age.
Workplace lawyers expect that enforcing vaccination mandates without government orders could result in a fresh wave of legal challenges by workers, especially those in low-risk environments.
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“The case law to date has related mainly to high-risk scenarios such as flu vaccines in the healthcare sector where the employer’s decisions were found to be lawful and reasonable in the circumstances,” said Zana Bytheway, executive director of employment rights community legal centre JobWatch, reports the publication.
