Vaccines/jobs: shot down | Financial Times

National vaccination programmes are among the world’s most successful public health initiatives. Creeping scepticism threatens that success, including the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines. But British companies hoping to take matters into their own hands risk legal action. 

The UK has not made vaccinations compulsory since an 1853 Act targeting smallpox. The modern national immunisation programme against infections is not mandatory. Unless governments opt to change this, employers will struggle to force workers to get jabs.

A legal system that prioritises patient autonomy and voluntary participation has its flaws. The UK failed to ensure that a recommended 95 per cent of children were immunised against vaccine-preventable diseases in 2019, according to data from the World Bank. Measles immunisation for children aged 12-23 months, for example, was just 91 per cent.

Europe has taken a more assertive approach. Ten countries, including Italy and Poland, insist on vaccines. Even so, fines and other deterrents are not always enough to persuade sceptics. Measles vaccination is mandatory in France, yet just 90 per cent of young children are immunised. In Poland, failure to immunise children can lead to financial penalties for parents. But the number of people refusing vaccines is on the rise.

It makes sense that employers want to minimise virus transmission risk for workers and customers — particularly those in healthcare. But most governments show no signs of implementing vaccine mandates. Companies considering “no jab, no job” policies for prospective and existing employees therefore risk breach of contract or discrimination claims. Jules Quinn, partner at London based law firm King & Spalding, points out that there are legitimate reasons why a small number of individuals may opt out of a Covid-19 vaccination. Pregnant women, for example, were not included in trials.

The duty to provide a safe workplace extends to the pandemic. New York’s attorney-general has sued Amazon, arguing that it provided inadequate protection for warehouse and delivery workers last year. But “no jab, no job” rules would add to creeping encroachment on employees’ private lives, along with social media background checks and workplace drugs testing.

There is little proof such interference changes behaviour. Randomised drug tests are commonplace in the US but according to data from Quest Diagnostics, the percentage of employees testing positive for drug use is at a 16-year high. Attempts to strong-arm staff into immunisation not only risks legal action, it may not even be effective.