Well, now we can add another phrase to the lexicon of authoritarianism: ‘‘medical retirement’’.
This is the Orwellian phrase coined by the CEO of a mega-corporation to justify forcing medical procedures on its employees. CEOs have a knack for spinning snazzy euphemisms for vile behaviours: “downsizing”, “unallocated”, “normal involuntary attrition”, and so on. It’s enough to drive an employee to “end-of-life decision-making”.
Perhaps sensing that it would be a CCP-style bridge too far, the Australian government has so far shied away from coming right out and saying they want to make Covid vaccination mandatory. So they’re lurking in the shadows and letting corporations do their dirty work for them.
Telstra said that it would require about a third of its workforce to be vaccinated, and had commenced a one-week consultation period with staff, unions and partners ahead of what will be one of corporate Australia’s largest mandatory vaccination drives.
The telco is facing potential legal challenges, however, after chief executive Andy Penn said in a letter to employees that those who refuse the vaccine may be forced into ‘‘medical retirement’’.
Presumably, that just means being “uninstalled”, not actually rendered as “non-operative personnel”. We hope.
Telstra is now the fourth company to mandate Covid-19 vaccinations, joining SPC – the first business to force employees to get the jab – Qantas and Australia’s second-biggest private hospital operator, Healthscope.
But other companies have been contemplating compulsory jabs and, while they have resisted so far, concede they may be used as a last resort to ensure 80 per cent of Australia’s population is fully vaccinated – the threshold needed to end lockdowns and start living with the virus.
A purely arbitrary threshold, of course. As with all things Covid, the government and their pet health bureaucrats really have no idea, so they’ve just pulled a number out of their arse and decreed that the commoners must submit.
For once, though, a big union is remembering what it’s meant to be for: standing up for the rights of its workers.
Those rights include patient autonomy – the right not to be forced to undergo medical procedures.
The Communications Union said it was seeking legal advice about the proposals, in what could prove a significant test case for vaccine mandates for Australian businesses.
“We know from the health advice that getting vaccinated will significantly reduce the threats posed by the virus to our members, their families, and the vulnerable groups they are in contact with. That’s why the union has been pushing for measures such as priority access, paid leave and incentives for workers to get the jab,” a CEPU spokeswoman said.
“However, unlike the Telstra CEO, our members have been on the front line of the nation’s pandemic response – putting their own safety, and that of their families, at risk for over a year in order to keep our communities connected. If he thinks he can sack those same essential workers who may have a genuine medical exemption to vaccination, he is mistaken.
“The law doesn’t provide for this, public health measures do not provide for this and we will be challenging this quite strongly.”
But no corporate dictatorship is complete without the mission statement of the modern, “progressive”, authoritarian bully: the “right side of history”.
Mr Penn said Telstra’s mandate was about “being on the right side of history”.
The Australian
No, their mandate is to make money for their shareholders and obey the law.
What next for Telstra, one must ask? Mandatory BMI targets for employees? After all, the medical cost of obesity is far greater than Covid. How about mandatory foetal testing for pregnant employees, followed by mandatory abortion for any showing indications of abnormalities?
Perhaps forced sterilisation for employees who’ve met a company one-child threshold?
Please share this article so that others can discover The BFD
