‘It's a mess,’ says Cosatu, insisting mandatory vaccinations won't work

The labour federation’s general secretary, Bheki Ntshalintshali was speaking at the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) annual national summit on Tuesday.

The social partners plan to approach the Constitutional Court early next year for a declaratory order on mandatory vaccination in South Africa.

Ntshalintshali says the labour federation is not in agreement with mandatory vaccines.

He says alternative measures should be implemented to get people to vaccinate.

“We want to put it clear that our view as labour, we are opposed to mandatory vaccination. At least we agree to the ministerial directive that has been agreed and put in Nedlac and it gives a number of options as to how this matter should be dealt with,” says Ntshalintshali.

“We don’t believe that you need to govern by regulations that every time you need to have a social compact with people the first thing you need to think is what law we need to put in place to deal with these issues.”

Ntshalintshali told the summit that other sectors have managed to get workers vaccinated without forcing them.

“We are saying this because we are quite aware of several sectors that are going wonderful work in terms of engaging workers in a number of sectors that we are in. In the clothing and textile, almost 70% of workers are vaccinated, the education and mining sector has been made, there is no magic but management has taken a view of engaging people.

“We don’t think it's going to work, it’s a mess it's not going to work and I think let’s look to other possible ways and engage.”

ALSO READ