Chamber Of Commerce And Employers Association Back Calls For Mandatory Vaccination Of Employees
The Malta Chamber of Commerce and the Employers Association have both backed calls for workers across the country to be obliged to be vaccinated in order to go to work.
Chamber of Commerce President Marisa Xuereb and Malta Employers Association president Joseph Farrugia were both guests on a TVAM discussion programme this morning, where they said they agreed that employees should get vaccinated.
“You need a vaccine certificate to go to the cinema, so why not a workplace, especially when considering that there is normally a higher density of people at a workplace,” Farrugia said.
He added that “this should apply to all workplaces across the country” unless there was a valid reason to the contrary.
Xuereb offered a slightly more nuanced reply, arguing that employers needed to have the option of obliging all employees to get vaccinated provided that this was done on the basis of a risk assessment.
“It depends on the work environment. If someone is working alone in an office, maybe the risk is very small, but in places where you have a large density of people in a relatively small space, an employer should have the right to force employees to get vaccinated,” Xuereb said.
Both rejected claims that people had the right not to get vaccinated, arguing that ultimately every decision in life came with its own consequences.
“You might have the right to not get vaccinated, but this also means you can’t go to work,” Farrugia said.
Xuereb again stressed that if a risk assessment found that unvaccinated employees posed a risk, then employers should have the right to impose the rule.
“The authorities need to back the employers who feel that they need to oblige employees to get vaccinated,” Xuereb said.
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