Carry on Covid cases

The Employment Relations Authority (ERA) continues to deal with various Covid-19 cases, mostly dealing with unfair dismissals.

In a recent ERA decision, a vision impaired healthcare support worker – who worked for Blind Low Vision NZ (BLV) – was told that to continue in her role she was required to be vaccinated, which she opposed due to health reasons and advice from her GP.
As she was already performing between 80 and 95% of her role remotely (due to her disability), she asked BLV to let her work remotely 100% of the time. BLV refused and said that if she was unable to attend clients’ homes when needed, she was unable to fully perform her role, and they dismissed her.

The ERA found numerous failings in the actions of BLV and awarded compensation and ordered reinstatement.

On a micro level the employer should have found alternatives to dismissal. On a macro level, while the government got many things right in how they dealt with the Covid-19 pandemic, they also made it up as they went and got some things wrong.
There simply was no need to dismiss people who refused to get vaccinated, when alternative duties could have been found in most cases.

For some people this was a political decision, and for others it was a health decision. Either way it made a mockery of the team of five million being kind to each other and created lasting hurt and pain for a small number of people, for little to no overall benefit to society. I hope we remember these lessons.

If I can help you with employment law email me at paul@pblaw.nz.