A large London Plumbing company, Pimlico Plumbers, is planning on changing their workforce’s contracts to stipulate that they must all be vaccinated. New starters will only be employed if they have been vaccinated. The owner of the company is willing to pay for all of his employees to be vaccinated privately, if this becomes possible and has set aside the funds to do it.
Many of his employees will probably welcome the offer but by law he cannot compel an existing employee to get vaccinated, however, and he cannot fire employees who refuse to be vaccinated without being hit by a claim for unfair dismissal.
Is this set to be the new normal in UK employment?
by 81 Comments
The man is clearly an idiot who has no understanding of public health and NHS policy.
It is ill educated idiots like this that got Trump into power in the US.
What annoys me is why he is even given airtime.
Both ill and educated – that’s a dangerous cocktail.
The same Pimlico Plumbers that lost in the Supreme Court over whether their plumbers were really self employed.
https://www.accountancyage.com/2018/06/13/supreme-court-rules-against-pimlico-plumbers-in-landmark-employment-case/
I do think that some people will have to prove that they’ve been vaccinated, even if only for a few months, until infection numbers are sufficiently low. Not sure plumbers will fall into that category though.
Plumbers have to go into people’s houses. That’s pretty high risk.
(Of course they can still pass it on the the punters even if they’ve been vaccinated, but fuck them… once they’ve paid, anyway)
Do we know this for sure? It’s still unknown as far as I know.
What’s the problem? Plumbers never turn up anyway, unless you’re out.
He’s a rentagob with a 70s haircut to go with his 70s attitude. At the start of the Pandemic he was threatening his staff with the sack if they refused to come off furlough in non Covid safe conditions Wanker…
https://www.pimlicoplumbers.com/blog/if-you-ve-taken-the-p-ss-with-furlough-you-ll-find-yourself-at-home-for-good
Interesting.
A vaccination programme is for the collective good. We get a jab to protect each other, especially those more susceptible to the disease and the poor souls unable to participate because of health reasons, such as allergy. No vaccine is guaranteed to protect an individual 100%. Even those who have had the vaccine benefit from others having it too. Herd immunity has become a phrase that is mocked but we do need at least 80% of the population vaccinated to ‘conquer’ this virus, preferably a lot more. People who refuse jeopardise us all.
This man may be off on a tangent but I would implore everyone to accept the offer of vaccination when it comes. You may have a sore arm or feel rough for a couple of days but you’ll be doing all of us a favour.
My Dad’s having his first one at KCom Stadium on Saturday afternoon. Best thing to happen there at that time of the week since the days of Stevie Bruce.
…home crowd sadly not allowed in, of course. Come on Tahhhgers!
First time for many years they’ll have witnessed such pinpoint accuracy…
I slightly worry that the Allams are too tight to get the Covid vaccine and he just comes out immune to cat flu.
What do the Allmans have to do wi- ? Oh.
Hull City’s been bought by the Allman Brothers?
Jumpers for whipping posts.
Tiggs, Moose raises a good point above (in answer to DaveBP). If you’re vaccinated but can still carry it and pass it on, how does that help the few who can’t have the jab?
If, once jabbed, you couldn’t catch it or pass it on, and 80% were vaccinated, the R rate would be less than 0.2 and it would evenutally fizzle out.
So far, we don’t know if immune people can carry and pass on the virus. However, we do know that those actively infected spread the virus easily, far more effectively than those who are asymptomatic carriers. Stop people getting the infection and the R rate will drop. But, we still need the vast majority of the population to have immunity to have a big impact.
I totally agree Tiggs. In fact I will add that once some kind of normal returns people who are eligible for the vaccine should only be allowed in sports arenas, museums, cinemas, the pub, I think you get my drift, only if they have had the vaccine.
The Covidiots who refuse can do one.
Q. How will we know who have refused to have the vaccine?
A. Don’t worry, they’ll fucking tell you.
Fully agree @Tiggerlion. I would go one step further and deny vaccine refusers the same rights as those who have the vaccination.
At school growing up I had to have the TB jab – it wasnt optional.
The guy might well be a knob – I dont really know anything about him – but having a vaccination against a disease that might kill you seems eminently sensible to me.
If, say 40% refuse, but everyone else has had the Jab, wouldn’t we see those 40% getting ill until they’ve all got sufficient anti bodies to be immune (assuming they’re not dead)?
In time, couldn’t antibodies from an early strain of the virus be ineffective against a later strain which has mutated sufficiently away from that early strain?
Also, a lot of the refuseniks will be fat blokes who’ll cark it if they get covid. Problem solved!
Not only will a significant number of the 40% unvaccinated die but also some of the 60% vaccinated, as no vaccine is 100% guaranteed.
Apart from the strain on the NHS including the mental strain on the staff, should we really care? I know it sounds callous but there must be many people dying each year because they won’t have the flu vaccine. The ones I really feel sorry for are the ones that won’t have the Jab because they believe lies and are therefore not making the decision with the proper facts.
Yes.
They will clog up the NHS leaving no capacity for managing other illnesses, and they threaten the health of those who do get vaccinated because no vaccine is guaranteed especially when a virus is running wild through the poplulation.
Currently, just 2% have the virus. Just imagine if 40% did.
Of all the people to feel sorry for in this whole mess, you went for them?
I’m fully aware he’s no beacon of enlightened employment practice, but that aside, what about my point? Is a covid-vaccinated workforce the way it’s going to be in the immediate future? No job without having been “done”?
Sorry Mike he just boils my piss… There was a care hone owner on the Radio the other day saying she couldn’t force her staff to have it more share the information with residents or their families. Workers rights vs public good. I think it comes down to good management. Out of 27 community transport staff we’ve had 26 say ” yes please”. That’s obviously down to me…..
I was reading something earlier today about a survey that has been carried out, regarding people’s willingness to be vaccinated.
Amongst ethnically Caucasian people surveyed, the percentage willing to have a vaccine was about 73%. Among people of Afro-Carribean and South Asian ethnicity it was quite significantly lower. There is a lot of anti-vax misinformation being targeted at South Asian people currently, saying that vaccine production uses products from cows and pigs. Presumably militantly vegan and animal rights people are also being deterred if they are hearing this stuff.
I’m no employment law specialist but I am married to one. I’m fairly sure this comes under the same remit as “no facial hair” i.e. is unenforcable.
Mind you, I once worked for a bloke who rejected any interviewee who turned up wearing brown shoes.
You worked for Frank Zappa?
I once worked for a man who called me a poof because I was wearing red shoes.
I assume they weren’t cherry red DMs.
Red suede desert boots. They were a little on the exotic side, I admit.
Bold, I would say. Very bold.
Mr Thep omits to tell us that the shoes were all he turned up in.
Can you ask your wife this question, please?
Care Home staff have a responsibility, nay duty, to care for and maintain the health and wellbeing of the residents. Those residents are by far the most vulnerable to Covid, so much so that, for every 20 that are vaccinated, one life is saved. If an employee refuses the vaccine could that be considered a dereliction of their duty of care for the residents?
The care home where my father lives due to care needed as he has Alzheimer’s did well to keep infection out for a long time, until just before Christmas. Then the poor buggers went down like wheat before a scythe – 13 deaths in one care home from December 18 to a week or so ago (it may be more now of course, and probably is). My father tested positive but was asymptomatic. Following that example I suggest that anyone working there who refused the vaccine would be not just professionally negligent, but ought to be criminally negligent too.
Mrs F says:
“Do care home employees have an oath, like doctors?
Employment is either legal or contractural. So it depends on the paperwork of the individual care home (or organisation) – contract of employment, company policy & procedure. An employee who refuses a vaccine might find that they can’t be sacked but can be “moved” to a “safe” role (i.e. demoted and/or encouraged to resign).”
In Nursing Homes, the qualified nurses will probably will have taken the Nightingale Pledge, the equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath. Other staff, probably not, but they are taking a job they know is to care for elderly people. There will be no ‘safe’ role in a Care Home.
Thank your wife anyway, steve.
Disney have a no facial hair policy – has worked for them.
You’re forgetting several of the Seven Dwarfs.
Company Policy is not the same as UK Employment Law. UKEL trumps CoPo.
A couple of years back there was a woman who took her employer to tribunal because CoPo said “woman must wear high-heeled shoes” and it was causing her pain. She won, company lost. Job reinstated with compensation and costs.
Should a Disney UK employee grow a ‘tach they would be given a non customer facing role but not sacked.
I remember that case well.
When my daughter was younger we visited the Disney Store frequently – never saw anyone with even a shadow.
I used to work for Our Price/Virgin. We had to be “committed” to facial hair.
It’s illegal to be a barista without at least twenty inches of beard.
Then there’s the blokes. Oho!
Whereas I, as a Ginger, would be committed* should I grow facial hair.
(*) or worse, according to Mrs F.
Not even eyebrows? Flipping heck!
It’ll never go into law, of course, but in practice it will be like other forms of discrimination – because that’s what it is – which happen but, unlike here, it won’t be openly discussed.
Mayyyybe. Not all discrimination is unlawful – for it to be, it has to be based upon a protected characteristic.
DIscrimination on vaccination status may or may not be unlawful. If you decided not to take it because you’re a prick, then you’ll be SOL. If it were because of a protected characteristic, such as an underlying medical condition, you may well have a case.
I was wondering if any of our medical experts had a view on this seemingly arbitrary decision to extend the gap between jab one and jab two from 3 weeks to twelve to give more people jab one? With our government’s track record on Covid it feels quite scary. I mean if they fuck the vaccination programme up ….
The evidence for delaying the second dose of the Oxford Astra Zeneca is pretty strong. Pfizer not so much. It will be the Oxford AZ that will be used the most, by far. It is far easier to handle, store and transport around.
Saw an interesting comment on this – which would you rather, each of your parents got one jab each, or one parent got both? It’s a matter of supply. The problem at the moment, amazingly, is a shortage of the particular glass they make the vials out of, which has to come from China. The government have had a year to prepare for that particular aspect of the supply chain.
Heard an immunologist (or similar) on the radio saying that the 70% effectiveness rate isn’t a huge problem when nobody expect flu jabs to have greater than 50%. Wasn’t sure how to process that information.
The glass comes from China? Well I bloody never. How…. interesting.
We have glass manufacturers in this country that I am sure could remodel their production and make a few bob too. Fuck China.
They’ll get the gig if they make a donation to the Tory Party. Seems to work for all their other contributors.
Being a medic doesn’t make me an expert, but Mr Thep nails the optimistic pragmatism of 2 folk part protected better than one, cos none are or will be 100%. With the AZ it seems also to have some evidential base. Pfizer less so, with my declaration of interest being I was glad to get my 2nd one at 3/52, again a 6th dose squeezed out of a nominal 5 dose ampoule. Spent a lively day giving AZ at a care home today and, honest, it felt good.
Top man.
What the Mooche said.^^^
Excellent stuff @retropath2
Well done.
You’ll enjoy doing it all over again the week after Easter Bank Holiday weekend!
Thanks Retro. It’s a great thing you do. So on the 1st dose I was lead to believe it set the immune system up but had a shelf life. The 2nd one locked it in so to speak. Is there any evidence that the 1st one will be effective after 12 weeks?
Depends which ‘evidence’ you read about each vaccine. We’ll know better in a year or two…… So far it is research and field based findings and information. All of us getting it are essentially in a massive trial, and that is the basis of the licensing. Does that or should that concern? I’m thinking and hoping not. I’m choosing not and putting my faith in the experts who have trod similar paths, if smaller scale and maybe more time. (I am way more positive about it than any sceptic may choose to interpret the above, btw)
In terms of Oxford Astra Zeneca, Dave, there is evidence that benefit from the 1st that continues to 12 weeks and beyond. The second jab increases immunity a bit but it mainly prolongues it. It sets up your immune system for the medium to longer term. How long is unknown as these vaccines are new. Viral mutations are potentially a significant problem. Flu changes all the time, which is why we need an annual, updated jab.
Pfizer were very organised and disciplined in their research. They stuck to the protocol. Very few failed to receive a second dose. Almost all got it three to four weeks later. The latest was six weeks. Oxford AZ was all over the place, three trials in four different countries. Thousands didn’t get a second dose at all and many received it late. The upside to the messy research is that the number crunchers have been able to tease out different cohorts who received different regimes and compare their outcomes.
That’s a long way of saying, there is little evidence of what happens with a delayed second dose of Pfizer but quite a bit for Astra Zeneca.
Thanks Retro and Tig, I want to be positive and upbeat about it as I have been around our staff this week. In particular our school drivers who have all put their names on the list for a vaccine which our local authority has offered. I just have this “world class, oven ready” sized anxiety over the process and who made the 12 week decision
Thanks again to you both..
If offered AZ, I think I’d prefer to delay the second dose to 12 weeks.
At present, there is no option. If you get a first jab, the second is only going to happen after Easter.
I suspect I would agree but got lucky/unlucky and had Pfizer’s as per their datasheet and outwith current UK Guidelines. As likely most here will get AZ, I can’t let you know how I’m doing automatically, so will post. I didn’t realise the 5G chip varied as per service provider.
Because of budget constraints the British AZ has a two cocoa tins and a bit of string chip.
Bill Gates is going to be bitterly disappointed when the reads the transcripts of my mind. “Records, Toyah, records, Toyah. Jeez, this guy is dull.”
Apparently the head Norwegian virologist, among others, has expressed concern about the proposed UK three month gap between first and second jab. It’s thought risky and could in a worst case scenario lead to a super mutation. 😳
Here’s an interesting page.
https://www.hse.gov.uk/foi/internalops/og/og-00003.htm
It illustrates the difficulty in getting around a legal requirement to provide a specific means of protection from harm in the workplace, for people whose belief system does not permit the means of providing such protection.
i.e. the exemption allowed for turban-wearing Sikhs from the requirement to wear head protection on construction sites, mandatory for all other workers. Note that only those Sikhs who are turban-wearers are exempt and that employers must then ensure that turban-wearing Sikhs are not exposed to the danger of head injury that not wearing head protection could cause. Either by eliminating the risk on site or by ensuring those exempted are not working where there is a risk.
I imagine the precedents set here could be used to formulate legislation to deal with people who refuse Covid vaccination during a pandemic and afterwards.
Yep. In the HSE lingo, ‘hazard’ and ‘risk’ are entirely different things.
In dull news, safety standard EN 60950 ended on Dec 20th. Its replacement is a bit more flexible and allows you to sell something with a hazard as long as you minimise the risk of injury occuring. So you can fit turbine blades to your product, as long as you fit a finger guard which needs a ‘tool’ (i.e. screwdriver) to remove it. That’s going to end well. I can see an amendment coming soon…
How many religions are anti-vax? Jehovah’s Witnesses, maybe, but they object to the use of human tissue in others, such as blood transfusions or transplants. I don’t think Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Sikhism, Hinduism or any other, teach that people must not take medicines?
Does the law say that a delusional belief must be obeyed? We aren’t going to go round sectioning people to give them a vaccine but I don’t think a belief that Bill Gates has put 5G in them is a legitimate reason to refuse one.
You can get onto shaky ground just by calling something a delusional belief.
Militant atheists might argue that any religious belief is delusional. Religious fundamentalists might well argue that atheism is a delusional belief.
Hmm. A delusion is an idiosyncratic belief or impression maintained despite being contradicted by reality or rational argument. I don’t know if there is a legal definition.
I do know that there are unfounded claims that the vaccine uses animal materials in order to put off vegans and vegetarians. Also, this internet madness concerning 5G or Bill Gates is just that, madness.
It’s the animal materials being used to dissuade ethnic South Asian populations as well – a roundabout way of turning it into a matter of religious principle.
There are no animal materials in the vaccines, but one objection raised is that they have been tested on animals. They have also been tested on humans. Another issue is that vaccines are ‘not natural’. However, they are far more natural than being ventilated in an ICU.
Personally, I’m all in favour of any medication being tested on animals before being tested on humans. Just as it should be. This whole anti-vaxxer things boils my piss.
These people have their heads on backwards.
They decide they don’t like vaccination. Then they find something they claim is bad about it and if that particular thing is proved to be nonsensical or completely false, they either refuse to believe it, or they actively seek something else to object to. Or both. It’s like they’re constantly looking for things to back up what they’ve already decided to believe.
But worse, they decide they have to persuade a whole load more people to join them for the ride. And post fake news about empty hospitals. It’s so hard not to wish that they catch the virus.
Then why try not to wish?
Oh yeah – in the process of getting it they might pass it on to real people.