By Zuko Komisa
South African financial institution Old Mutual says it will not reinstate fired unvaccinated employees.
Old Mutual established a mandatory Covid-19 vaccine policy in November 2021, which went into effect in January 2022.
As a result of noncompliance, at least 49 employees have been fired.
Nedbank recently disclosed that certain employees had declined the Covid-19 vaccination and the alternate option of routine Covid-19 testing, necessitating their termination of employment.
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Kaya Biz with Gugulethu Mfuphi spoke with Joe Kokela who is the South African Society of Bank Officials (SASBO) General secretary about how the union is the position in this matter.
LISTEN TO THE FULL CONVERSATION:
Kokela says SASBO is taking legal action against Old Mutual as they have declared a war against the union by not listening to them.
“We issued two letters to Old Mutual, one was on the doing away of the COVID 19 policy because it was redundant, the second one was on the reinstatement of people that we dismissed by Old Mutual, and unfortunately they chose to respond to us by saying they are not inn any position to reappoint or reinstate any of our members. So, I think the war is on.”
“They declared war with us because they did not want to listen to what we were putting forward to them and we are taking legal action against them,” says Kokela
He also said that the number of impacted staff could be far higher as many were still facing incapacity hearings when the policy was scrapped.
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