“Unvaccinated people are a risk not only to themselves but also to other people. We should consider whether it is possible to require people to be vaccinated if they work with at-risk groups or with children and young people who are still vaccinated, ”Razmyar tweeted.
“Freedom of choice doesn’t mean you can endanger the health of others.”
Similarly, Vihriälä considers that it would be justified to impose vaccination requirements on employees who are in close contact with their colleagues or clients.
“It sounds incomprehensible that healthcare professionals can refuse to take a vaccine that, based on research data, protects patients relatively well. I also don’t think it would be unreasonable to require vaccinations from teachers to reduce the risk of spreading in personal teaching, ”he wrote in his blog.
However, Finnish legislation does not allow employers to force employees to be vaccinated, as the Communicable Diseases Act and its supplementary regulations define vaccinations as voluntary. However, social partners believe that employers may require employees to test for the virus and, in principle, even deny access to the workplace.
“We understand that you can force [an employee] perform a coronavirus test if necessary for occupational safety, Mikael Pentikäinen, CEO of the Confederation of Finnish Industries, told Helsingin Sanomat.
Markus Äimälä, the head of legal affairs at the Confederation of Finnish Industries (EK), pointed out that employers have a duty to try to eliminate occupational safety risks, for example by asking an employee to telecommute, reassign an employee or introduce equipment such as face masks.
“If the risk cannot be eliminated by relocation or protective measures, the employer has the main right to ban the employee from coming to work,” he told the newspaper. “I am sure that the number of such employees is not huge in Finland.”
YLE on Saturday wrote There has also been a debate about whether employers have the right to ask employees to disclose their vaccination status.
“It is possible that an employer defines work tasks differently based on whether an employee has been vaccinated or not. The actions of the employer also depend on the general coronavirus situation. It is possible that the vaccination status will be discussed in the workplace and the employer may inquire about it, recommend that employees take the vaccine and share information about the benefits of the vaccines. Summer Lahti-Leeve, Senior Adviser at EK, to YLE.
Employers, he said, need to look into the need to offer new jobs to workers whose jobs need to be changed due to vaccination. Such tasks could be found, for example, in the healthcare sector.
Karoliina Huovila, A working conditions expert of the Confederation of Finnish Trade Unions (SAK), reiterated the assessment and emphasized that changes to the tasks must be based on necessity.
“If there are tasks where health security would be really at risk if they were handled by an unvaccinated worker, you can arrange other tasks in some circumstances. That, of course, would not be a reason for layoffs, ”he said.
He estimates that because vaccinations are voluntary, employees have no obligation to disclose vaccinations to employers for privacy reasons. He added that protection could be compromised if duties are changed, as other employees may be able to deduce which of their colleagues have been vaccinated and which have not.
“You tested the limits of privacy very quickly. Challenges arise easily, ”Huovila told YLE.
He called for preparatory work to anticipate complex legal issues that may arise, in particular, from situations where a worker stops vaccinating for reasons other than health.
“If someone has a health reason not to take the vaccine, you obviously can’t infringe on their employment rights or what your employment contract stipulates. There is another issue if someone does not want to be vaccinated and poses a risk to co-workers and possibly clients and the employer needs to make some arrangements. Then we would face very difficult legal issues, ”Huovila said.
Aleksi Teivainen – HT
Source: The Nordic Page