The Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) has called on the Gov­ern­ment to en­gage the trade union move­ment in a mean­ing­ful way to solve the na­tion’s prob­lems with re­spect to the im­ple­men­ta­tion of safe zones in its pub­lic work­spaces.

PSA pres­i­dent Leroy Bap­tiste dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence held at its PSA of­fice on Tues­day af­ter­noon ques­tioned the “va­lid­i­ty of a qua­si safe zone.”

Bap­tiste made it clear that the vac­cine will not pre­vent work­ers or any­one else from con­tract­ing the virus and fur­ther asked of the Gov­ern­ment, “what is a qua­si safe zone.”

“This in our view, is con­cep­tu­al­ly oxy­moron. The As­so­ci­a­tion un­re­served­ly re­jects the Gov­ern­ment’s ill-ad­vised and ill-con­ceived cre­ation of your work­place as a qua­si safe zone,” Bap­tiste said.

“It is a dis­guise of your po­si­tion of manda­to­ry vac­ci­na­tion by an im­prop­er, un­eth­i­cal and ir­ra­tional de­vice. The PSA re­mains pro choice and con­tin­ues to ad­vo­cate on be­half of its mem­bers for a right of free­dom to choose whether they should be vac­ci­nat­ed or not. This right should not be tram­pled up­on as this our God-giv­en right,” he added.

Bap­tiste fur­ther stat­ed vac­ci­na­tion is not the on­ly way to take down the rate of hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tion due to COVID-19 but al­so sani­ti­sa­tion at the work­place and so­cial dis­tanc­ing must al­so be con­sid­ered.

Some of the oth­er points made by Bap­tiste sug­gest­ed that “there are con­flict­ing opin­ions on the vac­cine on the main­stream me­dia and there­fore the Gov­ern­ment must re­spect the opin­ion of work­ers and there­fore the PSA can­not sup­port the pun­ish­ment of work­ers.”

“His­to­ry is lit­tered with the wrong­do­ings of law: slav­ery, seg­re­ga­tion, apartheid was law. Say­ing some­thing is law does not make it right,” Bap­tiste added.