RDS: Social Side Behind Compulsory Vaccination Against COVID-19

- It is rare to get it all together. However, the situation is probably ripe for this - Rafał Baniak, president of the board of Employers of Poland wrote on Twitter, publishing a statement in which the organizations also appealed to Poles to adopt the COVID-19 vaccination. Other representatives of the organizations that backed the appeal write on social media about the "historic moment".

Earlier, trade unions and employers' organizations raised critical comments on the project , the so-called lex Hoc , i.e. the act which, among other things, is to enable employers to refer employees to vaccinations. The criticism concerns, for example, the lack of precision in the regulations (the deadline by which the employee must perform the test or the regulation of the issue of counting the hours that the employee has to spend on the test is not included in the working time).

Employers 'organizations also point out that lex Hoc will not solve employers' problems, especially small ones with workers resisting vaccination and testing. Employers will only be able to transfer such an employee to another job, where it will not pose an epidemic threat (which is a fiction in small companies, remote work is not an option in services). They won't be able to send him on vacation, neither paid nor unpaid. They will not be able to reduce his salary (even if other employees would have to fulfill his social duties).

It is not known what will be the fate of the project, which the Minister of Health says is to be a "key tool" in the fight against the pandemic at this stage. The second reading of the bill has not been placed on the Sejm's agenda (MPs are meeting next week, so perhaps the order will be completed). The government gave a positive opinion on him, but the Minister of Justice, Zbigniew Ziobro, publicly expressed his doubts and reservations. Since the Sejm will probably consider next week a motion to appoint a commission of inquiry in connection with the use of Pegasus to surveillance opposition politicians (and not only), PiS may not want to allow votes that would break the fragile and fragile unity of the ruling camp. Paradoxically, the argument for not proceeding with the Hoc project may also be the rate of increase in new infections (almost 33,000 were reported on Thursday, the week-to-week increase reached almost 95%). Next week, the minister of health forecasts daily reports of more than 50,000 and in early February - even 100,000 infections. The opponents of lex Hoc may hide behind the legislative calendar - the act has a chance to enter into force at the turn of February and March, when the fifth wave has already subsided.