Rishard Khan

rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

As the Gov­ern­ment’s dead­line nears for pub­lic sec­tor em­ploy­ees to be vac­ci­nat­ed or face un­paid leave, law lec­tur­er Dr Jamille Broome be­lieves the trade unions push­ing back against the move aren’t in­form­ing their mem­bers of the le­gal con­se­quences of their stance.

Broome is a Ju­rist, lec­tur­er in law, and an Em­ploy­ment & Labour Law (In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions) Con­sul­tant.

He was speak­ing on Mon­day dur­ing a we­bi­nar ti­tled COVID -19 and manda­to­ry vac­ci­na­tion in the work­place: Are you tak­ing the vac­cine to keep your job?

“I’m not say­ing that they (em­ploy­ees) should be vac­ci­nat­ed. I’m not say­ing that at all. I’m just say­ing that there are im­pli­ca­tions that come with not be­ing vac­ci­nat­ed,” Broome said.

He said if an em­ploy­ee re­fus­es to be vac­ci­nat­ed and the mat­ter goes be­fore the courts, it’s a lengthy process.

“It is not a mat­ter of you don’t come to work and you’re ter­mi­nat­ed, what­ev­er the case is, and you take a mat­ter against your em­ploy­er and it goes to court in six months. That is not go­ing to hap­pen in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

Broome said hear­ing dates at the In­dus­tri­al Court are cur­rent­ly be­ing set for the end of 2023 and will soon be ear­ly 2024.

“I’m not say­ing that is the ba­sis for dis­cour­ag­ing some­one from not pur­su­ing their rights if they be­lieve that it’s a le­git­i­mate one. I’m just say­ing that unions need to be very hon­est and up­front with these em­ploy­ees to let them know, ‘hey, if you want to chal­lenge this by all means great. But if you do, re­mem­ber you may be out of a job for two or three years by the time the mat­ter gets there and what are you go­ing to do in that time?’” he said.

He said com­pound­ing the is­sue is that many em­ploy­ers now are on­ly hir­ing ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed peo­ple.

“So if you do walk away from a job be­cause you refuse to be vac­ci­nat­ed, what are your op­tions af­ter that? Where do you go next? What is go­ing to hap­pen to you with re­gards to you and em­ploy­ment if you refuse to be vac­ci­nat­ed? Those are the things that every­one has to con­sid­er,” he said.

Dur­ing his pre­sen­ta­tion, he not­ed sev­er­al le­gal grounds by which em­ploy­ers can man­date em­ploy­ees to be vac­ci­nat­ed.