Despite there currently being no legal mandate in the UK for employees to get the Covid-19 vaccine, research has found that more than one in five employers have plans to implement a ‘no jab, no job’ policy.
A recent poll of 1,074 senior decision makers, conducted by YouGov for Acas, showed that 22 per cent of employers wanted to make the vaccination against Covid-19 a condition of employment for new employees - and 21 per cent wanted to make it mandatory for existing workers.
However, experts have advised companies to get legal advice before bringing in these mandates, as they risk leading to claims of discrimination.
Susan Clews - Chief Executive of Acas - emphasised that it was a good idea for employers to get legal advice before bringing in a vaccine policy, as mandatory vaccines was a “very tricky area of employment law.”
She stated:
“Most workplaces are starting to navigate what working life should look like post-pandemic and it is clear from our poll that most employers have no plans to require staff to be vaccinated.”
She added:
“……it is always best to support staff to get the vaccine rather than insisting that they get it, and it’s a good idea for employers to get legal advice before bringing in a vaccine policy.”
Jules Quinn - Employment Partner at King & Spalding - endorsed this, advising that mandatory vaccine policies could lead to accusations of discrimination, stating:
“Individuals with underlying health conditions, pregnant workers and members of the BAME community are among the groups likely to be disproportionately affected by any vaccine mandate and could seek to claim indirect discrimination as a result. It will then be a question, on a case-by case basis, as to whether the employer has a legitimate aim in insisting on vaccination and can that aim be achieved by more proportionate means which have less of an impact on candidates and employees.”
The poll found that 52 per cent of decision makers said they did not intend to introduce a vaccine mandate for new staff and 55 per cent said the same for existing staff. Just over a fifth - 21 per cent - said they did not know or were not sure if a mandate would be introduced for new staff, with 19 per cent saying the same for existing staff.
Of those polled, 4 per cent and 5 per cent said they did not want to say whether vaccination would become mandatory for new or existing staff, respectively.
Richard Fox - Senior Employment Lawyer at Kingsley Napley - suspected that fewer employers would have supported a mandatory vaccination policy if they had been asked about their plans for staff vaccinations at the beginning of the pandemic because of the potential legal ramifications and risk of discrimination claims.
He added:
“Because of the ravages of the pandemic and potentially, as a result of developments elsewhere and in the UK, it seems some employers are now adopting a less cautious approach to this issue. It may be that employers in certain sectors, and those with operations in other jurisdictions where mandatory vaccination policies are more common than in the UK, may feel compulsory vaccines for staff are a wise precaution for the future. Bill Gates for one is predicting another coronavirus wave, albeit a different variant but probably more transmissible and more fatal than Covid-19.”
Richard Fox then said that employers considering a mandatory jab policy should be aware of the risk of discrimination claims and added:
“The government has chosen to push decision making on this issue back down to employers, and so it is for employers to consider how they would justify a policy of compulsory vaccination if they were challenged. It is going to be very interesting to see how the tribunals will deal with these cases.”
A steady fall in new Covid-19 cases has been witnessed since the beginning of May.
