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Fair Work guidelines could prove a blow to SPC's vaccine mandate

By Max Stainkamph

Aug 13, 2021

Australia’s Fair Work Ombudsman has provided general advice for companies across the country seeking to mandate vaccinations for employees, which may deal a blow to SPC’s quest to make vaccines mandatory for workers.

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The watchdog released a report on Thursday which divided work into four tiers to help guide when vaccine mandates would be more likely to be fair and reasonable.

The report stresses each business would be a case-by-case basis, but SPC doesn’t fall into the top two categories of work in which it is “more than likely to be reasonable” to mandate vaccines.

Tier one and two workers are people working in settings such as hotel quarantine or border control (tier one) or with people more vulnerable to the impacts of COVID-19 (such as healthcare or aged care workers).

The report said for tier three workers — “who provide essential goods and services with interaction or likely interaction between employees and customers or other employees” — it depended on how vulnerable the area was as to whether a mandate would likely be reasonable.

“Areas where no community transmission of coronavirus has occurred for some time, a direction to employees is in most cases less likely to be reasonable,” the report said.

The report is not legally binding, and encouraged employers to seek their own legal advice with regards to their own enterprise bargaining agreements or other registered agreements.

SPC made headlines a fortnight ago as the first company in Australia to mandate employees be vaccinated against COVID-19.

It has employees based all over the country, but Shepparton hasn’t recorded a positive case since October 2020.

However, several food processing plants — including a meat works in Colac — were hotspots during the height of Victoria’s second wave of the virus.

“The coronavirus pandemic doesn’t automatically make it reasonable for employers to direct employees to be vaccinated against the virus,” the report said.

The report also said employees needed to be consulted over the changes before they were put in place.

The Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union claimed SPC didn’t consult workers before making the announcement, which SPC chief executive officer Robert Giles disputes.

The company, workers and unions have met several times since the announcement, with the AMWU and SPC management due to meet again on Wednesday to clarify more than 30 questions about the policy.

The Fair Work Ombudsman’s broad tiers for work:

Workers in the first two tiers would be more likely to reasonably put vaccine mandates in place, while tier four is less likely. Tier three is dependant on if the area is or has been a COVID-19 hotspot.

● Tier 1 work, where employees are required as part of their duties to interact with people with an increased risk of being infected with coronavirus (for example, employees working in hotel quarantine or border control).

● Tier 2 work, where employees are required to have close contact with people who are particularly vulnerable to the health impacts of coronavirus (for example, employees working in health care or aged care).

● Tier 3 work, where there is interaction or likely interaction between employees and other people such as customers, other employees or the public in the normal course of employment (for example, stores providing essential goods and services).

● Tier 4 work, where employees have minimal face-to-face interaction as part of their normal employment duties (for example, where they are working from home).