Join the Assembly Line or Else! Short Reflection on Mandatory Vaccination

Recent pronouncements in the private sector have caused me to pen a short reflection on the mandatory vaccination propositions and the manner in which these defiant workers I saw on  TV were asked to fall in the assembly line or be sent home. It is no secret that as the world continues to grapple with the pandemic, governments and private sector businesses have become frustrated with the hesitancy of citizens to voluntarily take the vaccine, albeit without the necessary robust public education campaign to root this necessity in the hearts and soul of people as opposed to external confines. Prof. Richard Drayton was apt when he noted, although commenting on another subject matter that “no incarceration, flogging or hanging can do the work of rooting the law in the spirit of our people. That was tried before, during centuries of tyranny and law can only move from external constraint to inner inspiration, if they are grounded in justice and embody the personality of all citizens.”

This dire need for public education was put into sharp focus when I heard some of the sentiments of the workers as to their rationale for not taking the vaccine. They noted that they have not been convinced to take the vaccine because “take the vaccine you may die, don’t take it you may die, so I prefer not take it.” The last time I heard something like that,   someone was trying to convince me of their non-compliance to living life responsibly as they never know when the time is nigh. Of course, you may say as I would, using the same logic, that it is better to at least take it and find out, as it may just provide the layer of protection necessary.

But it showed that our messaging and rhetoric of trusting the science has not been working as the workers clearly did not understand that the purpose of the vaccine has never been and will never be to eradicate your ability to contract the virus. Rather, it will reduce the severity of your illness should you contract the virus. It is in taking the vaccine that you may not die and just like seatbelts and cricket helmets, the vaccine is meant to reduce the risk of death and serious injury, not eradicate it as nothing can ever eradicate the possibility of death. This needs to be at the forefront of our messaging. I’m not convinced that this messaging occurred as the news report noted that management only offered to have professionals come in to speak about the vaccine. It should have been a summoning to an assembly where their concerns would be addressed.

A key part of governance is knowing your people and understanding what is most treasured among them, so as to ensure that this among other things are packaged in a persuasive way to appeal to our common sense of humanity. I’m not sure that we have appealed to the Saint Lucian in our quest to achieve herd immunity. Instead, we continue to borrow methods of persuasion without retrofitting them to our circumstances.

The public education which is required must move beyond two-second testimonials from influencers and advertisements which have clearly proved insufficient if we use vaccination rates as our criterion. We are presented with an opportunity to engage in comprehensive national dialogues on every street corner, football field, village, community and city which allow people to share their concerns and perspectives on the vaccine among other important issues that this pandemic has laid to bare. This opportunity may be missed if we prioritise expediency under the false pretence that we will return to a pre-COVID environment if we achieved herd immunity. It is this same normalcy of rigid social stratification, persistent poverty, overreliance on tourism, inability to transform our education system to adopt to the digital demands, high food import bills, economic stagnation, malfunctioning health care system, ineffective governance structures to address the needs of our people among others which has caused us to be affected so deeply by the onslaught of this pandemic. We must as a people be able to provide answers to the most challenging development questions if we are to transform our societies, not return to normalcy.

While we revere Antigua and Barbuda for their vaccination rates of about 41.6% in comparism to our 28% and their commitment to opening up the economy in spite of rising cases, achieved in part through mandatory vaccination in the public sector, time only will  reveal its implications on broader democratic norms and beliefs. The strength of our nurturing democracies is being tested as we peddle with mandatory postures as a trade-off for comprehensive public education campaigns which we estimate to be too arduous and painstaking, save and except for during election campaigns.

As Dr. Tennyson Joseph has noted: “CLR James always warned us that the Caribbean should not take too seriously its claim to being a democratic society beyond free, fair and integrity-based elections, separation of powers and other basic features of liberal democracies. He felt that our reflective instinct was towards crude authoritarianism on the part of the leadership, and either cowed obedience or naked rebellion. Those habits were formed in the harsh school of plantation slavery and the current age demands the careful nurturing of new democratic instincts.”

To that extent, this opportunity can be used to usher in the purist form of democratic traditions as representative democracy does not mystically disallow our representatives from acting on our behalf through consultation, engagement and other elements of participatory governance. Instead, it augments it by providing us all with an opportunity to share our concerns, perspectives and to ensure a decision can be made conscious of the views expressed.

The 30-day time span therefore to comply with the mandate seems wholly insufficient unless there is a preferred vaccine that is proposed by the management which falls within this timeline. It therefore seems that management is not only determining that vaccines should be mandatory but also suggesting what vaccine should be chosen. A longer period of time should have been utilised. It is concerning that it is so easy to create and apply these mandatory vaccination mandates, as with rising unemployment rates, businesses are almost guaranteed workers who will comply with these mandates without any opposition as businesses seem to now be replacing interviews with vaccination certificates. The wider democratic environment, where our expediency has caused us to neglect conversation in the name of immediate profits is worrying. There must be a formula where the two can coexist.

We must not waste this time addressing the cynicism and distrust for vaccines are rooted in our disavowal of the West and accentuated because of the emergence of social media with the ease of sharing disinformation and misinformation. Public education is the only way to dig our people from this pit. We must confront and employ massive digital literacy campaigns, to ensure people can discern truth from fiction as one of our biggest challenges in the 21^st century. It is also not surprising how many of our people, because of the medical dexterity and acumen displayed by Cuba, and their relationship with us based on mutual respect, complementary and comradery, prefer to wait for the procurement of the vaccines from Cuba. The notion therefore of “the only good vaccine is the one accessible to you” finds no resonance among those who prefer to wait. We must provide some information to our people on the progress of this.

On the severance payment issue, I’m not certain that employees breached the employment contract or any other provision under Section (162) ‘Non-Entitlement of Redundancy Pay’ of the Labour Code to disallow them from recovering severance payments. The contractual obligations could not have envisaged non-compliance with COVID-19 vaccine and other related matters as grounds for termination. However, employers have a common law duty to ensure that their work environment is safe and it is a valid case to make that vaccination provides that element of safety. Similarly, legislatures have the power to mandate vaccines as our philosophical underpinning of freedoms is that they are subject to the greater good, safety and well-being of all. Your right to do something is only right if it does not infringe on someone else’s right. However, I continue to fear that we are categorizing a growing number of people as ‘anti-vaxxers’ without listening and addressing their legitimate concerns about the vaccine. Further, that we do not seem to recognize the legitimate right of individuals to assert that to mandate a vaccine is to violate their freedom of choice of what gets to be put into their body. It is!

The actions of the government, Minister of Labour, Dr. Virgina Poyotte, and former Minister of Labor and Prime Minister Hon. Stephenson King must be watched beyond the rhetoric, posture and philosophical viewpoint that they [the government] will not mandate vaccines for people of Saint Lucia. It is interesting to see frustration has the potential to do, as the Prime Minister has moved from categorically stating that they do not philosophically believe in mandatory vaccination to now saying that “we will have to consider at some point.” However, key consideration should be paid instead to the need for continuous robust comprehensive public education campaign as clearly the strategy of ‘fear of death should be the motivation to get vaccinated” is ineffectual.

Further, it would be interesting to see whether the Minister will be the one to mandate severance payment in the 21^st century and what the judgement of the Labour Commissioner will be in this particular matter. Our society has an opportunity here to interrogate whether the maximum fine of $10,000 XCD for failure to comply with the rulings of the Labour Commissioner is deemed sufficient and whether it provides opportunity for employers to subvert the payment of severances because the fine may be cheaper. A formula which can be considered is looking at what the payment was due when the order was not complied with. For now, I wait to see whether the Labour Commissioner and Minister as well will fall in the assembly line or protect the rights of workers. There are many more mandates to come and it would be interesting to see what the position of the government will continue to be in the coming months. Are we going to rush to “normalcy” or use this opportunity to “transform our societies?”