What’s a union’s role when it comes to vaccine mandates?

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — The head of the BC Federation of Labour says the role of unions when it comes to workplace vaccine mandates is to encourage moves that protect everyone’s health and safety, while ensuring individual workers’ rights are upheld.

As immunization against COVID-19 has become a requirement for more and more employees in British Columbia — including healthcare workers, ski resort staff, and transit operators — federation president Laird Cronk says the organization representing 500,000 workers has demonstrated its support of vaccines.

“Fundamentally, the labour movement is built around health and safety in the workplace and worker rights. So we’ve been arguing, throughout the pandemic, for the highest safety standards for workers who are at work during COVID-19, this deadly disease,” Cronk says.

“In the labour movement, we’d like to see every worker in every workplace know that they’re vaccinated, and that the worker beside them, and beside them is vaccinated as well.”

Proof of vaccination mandates have head of @bcfed trying not to take sides when it comes to member unions for —or against— forced immunization policies.@Laird4bcfed says “Fundamentally, the labour movement is built around health and safety in the workplace.”#bcpoli @CityNewsVAN pic.twitter.com/vUDQEPJ0OQ

— Marcella Bernardo (@MBernardoNews) October 13, 2021

Advocating for paid time off to get the shot is one thing Cronk points to as an example of how the federation has gotten behind policies that will boost vaccination rates. He estimates that the overall rate of immunization is high among union workers, saying there’s nothing to suggest it is any lower than the provincial average of 82 per cent.

“This is true in union environments, in workplaces, as it is in the general public. We know the vast majority of the members of our unions are vaccinated, and we know that they want to know that they’re healthy and safe at work, which means — and the science is clear — that they want to know that their coworkers are vaccinated.”

While some unions have welcomed mandates, others have been more measured in their support. The BC Teachers’ Federation, for example, has said a mandate for staff in B.C. schools would have to provide exemptions for those who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons or on other grounds protected by human rights legislation.

The BC Nurses’ Union has come out in opposition to a mandate, saying a staffing crisis could be exacerbated by the requirement.

Ultimately, Cronk says unions have a duty to advocate for their members. He notes that while mandates in some sectors, like long-term care, have come as a result of a provincial health order, others have been brought in by private sector companies.

“If in a small number of cases people may have a medical reason, and they bring that to the union and that evidence is there they will represent them with the employer to make sure that they are treated fairly and equitably in that case,” he explains.

“Unions have a responsibility to represent those members, to make sure that those individual employer vaccination mandates are fair and equitably applied to all workers in the workplace.”

While the issue of vaccination has proven somewhat thorny, Cronk says instituting paid sick leave as a way of protecting workers and the community from illnesses, like COVID-19, is something that has unequivocal support from the BCFED’s affiliate unions.

“It’s an idea whose time had long since come but this has really brought it into sharp focus. It’s never made sense to go to work sick and make other people sick,” he says.