An­oth­er trade union­ist is call­ing on Gov­ern­ment to re­think its po­si­tion on manda­to­ry vac­ci­na­tions against COVID-19 for its em­ploy­ees, and is rec­om­mend­ing that per­son­al choice be re­spect­ed.

An of­fi­cial state­ment is­sued by Pres­i­dent Gen­er­al of the All Trinidad Gen­er­al Work­ers Trade Union, Nir­van Ma­haraj, who has gone on record as be­ing pro-vac­cine, says Gov­ern­ment should:

“…hold its hand on the im­ple­men­ta­tion of any pol­i­cy of manda­to­ry vac­ci­na­tion in the Pub­lic sec­tor, un­til it can be proven be­yond a rea­son­able doubt and not on a bal­ance of prob­a­bil­i­ties, that the Vac­cine will elim­i­nate the virus and stop an in­di­vid­ual from con­tract­ing and spread­ing the virus.”

The fol­low­ing is the full text of the state­ment is­sued by Mr Ma­haraj…

The Pres­i­dent Gen­er­al of the All Trinidad Gen­er­al Work­ers Trade Union Nir­van Ma­haraj wish­es to again em­pha­sise that whilst he is in full sup­port of vac­ci­na­tion and is ac­tive­ly en­cour­ag­ing all per­sons to be­come vac­ci­nat­ed, there are sev­er­al rea­sons why manda­to­ry vac­ci­na­tion should not be im­posed or im­ple­ment­ed at this time and as such sev­er­al ques­tions must be asked:

1.         Is the cre­ation of a safe zone in the Pub­lic Sec­tor and the pend­ing amend­ments to the Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions an at­tempt by the Gov­ern­ment to cir­cum­vent prop­er pro­ce­dure by negat­ing a Par­lia­men­tary de­bate on manda­to­ry vac­ci­na­tion and the need for a three fifths Par­lia­men­tary ma­jor­i­ty?

2.         Will this pol­i­cy of the cre­ation of a safe zone in the Pub­lic sec­tor see the emer­gence of a line of de­mar­ca­tion be­tween the vac­ci­nat­ed and the un­vac­ci­nat­ed in the phys­i­cal ac­qui­si­tion of goods and ser­vices from the pub­lic sec­tor? In oth­er words, will the un­vac­ci­nat­ed be able to phys­i­cal­ly ac­cess these goods and ser­vices, if the con­cept of a safe zone means that both staff and pa­trons must be vac­ci­nat­ed?

3.         How can the Trade Union Move­ment en­gage in prop­er con­sul­ta­tion with and pro­vide rec­om­men­da­tions to the Gov­ern­ment if it is un­aware of the in­ti­mate de­tails of any leg­is­la­tion that is go­ing to Par­lia­ment, con­cern­ing this mat­ter?

REC­OM­MEN­DA­TION:

It is the rec­om­men­da­tion of the All Trinidad Gen­er­al Work­ers Trade Union that the Gov­ern­ment hold its hand on the im­ple­men­ta­tion of any pol­i­cy of manda­to­ry vac­ci­na­tion in the Pub­lic sec­tor, un­til it can be proven be­yond a rea­son­able doubt and not on a bal­ance of prob­a­bil­i­ties, that the Vac­cine will elim­i­nate the virus and stop an in­di­vid­ual from con­tract­ing and spread­ing the virus

THE GOV­ERN­MENT SHOULD IN­STEAD BUILD PUB­LIC TRUST IN THE VAC­CINE BY:

1.         Giv­ing an un­der­tak­ing to ac­cept li­a­bil­i­ty, fi­nan­cial and oth­er­wise for any ad­verse ef­fects on in­di­vid­u­als tak­ing the vac­cine, ex­am­ple pri­vate med­ical bills, loans and out­stand­ing debts in the event of bread win­ners of fam­i­lies be­ing neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ed. This could cer­tain­ly build con­fi­dence and give as­sur­ances to in­di­vid­u­als, rather than forc­ing a vac­cine on per­sons.

2.         Con­tin­u­ing the pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion dri­ve and en­cour­ag­ing per­sons to take the vac­cine through a mu­tu­al part­ner­ship with or­gan­i­sa­tions and stake­hold­ers that rep­re­sent the pub­lic.

IT MUST BE RE­MEM­BERED THAT:

There is no em­pir­i­cal ev­i­dence to show that any Covid 19 vac­cine will pre­vent an in­di­vid­ual from con­tract­ing and/or spread­ing the virus.

There­fore, tak­ing the vac­cine is a mat­ter of per­son­al choice de­ter­mined by one’s de­sire to give one­self in­di­vid­ual pro­tec­tion. It has noth­ing to do with pro­tect­ing the ex­ter­nal en­vi­ron­ment out­side one­self. Thus, how does the ar­gu­ment of pub­lic good arise?

A vac­ci­nat­ed per­son who be­comes com­pla­cent could ac­tu­al­ly spread the Virus faster and wider, than an un­vac­ci­nat­ed per­son who is ad­her­ing to all Covid 19 pro­to­cols.

What are the cri­te­ria to de­ter­mine that on­ly un­vac­ci­nat­ed per­sons must do a Covid test every two weeks, for ex­am­ple, if both the un­vac­ci­nat­ed and the vac­ci­nat­ed could con­tract and spread the Virus?

Un­til such time as it is proven that the Covid 19 Vac­cine can stop, the con­tract­ing and spread­ing of and elim­i­nate the virus, it re­mains a ques­tion of the vac­cine giv­ing per­son­al pro­tec­tion and there­fore must be a mat­ter of per­son­al choice.