Employers cannot force employees to get vaccinated

Vaccination is an important physical procedure, according to experts. Stock Photography.Image: Gorm Kallestad / NTB / TT

Soon the covid-19 vaccine is here, and with it all the questions that arise about the vaccine. Care staff should be given priority, but what happens if a care worker refuses to get vaccinated? Or an employee of a store, where the employer wants to promote himself as crown free?

The employers’ organization Svenskt Näringsliv does not yet have a clear answer to give. They are investigating the matter, greets the press service.

Svensk Handels’ view is that the employer cannot force employees to get vaccinated. But the trade is eager for the vaccine, “Many commercial companies welcome vaccination and want to participate in the vaccination process to reach as many people as possible,” Svensk Handel writes to TT.

But nevertheless, Unvaccinated staff is a point of sale, according to Swedish Trade. “We do not believe that member companies see vaccination as a point of sale, but rather as an opportunity for the infection to go down in society.”

The private care group Ambea, which, among other things, manages both the Vardagas nursing homes and home care services, does not see the situation very clear either.

– We are waiting for what the authorities say and we will follow it, says Urban Rybrink, Ambea press officer.

But care employers within municipalities and regions they have a clearer line. According to Jeanette Hedberg, Deputy Chief Negotiator for Swedish Municipalities and Regions (SKR), an employer cannot force its employees to get vaccinated.

In the Kommunal union, the perception is also clear: employers can never force public sector employees to get vaccinated, explains Peter Larsson, Kommunal’s ombudsman.

– It is constitutionally protected, the public cannot perform physical interventions, he says.

Petra Herzfeld Olsson, a professor of labor law at Stockholm University, agrees.

– The law can make exceptions to this constitutional protection. But then special reasons are required. Vaccination is a very physical intervention, and then it takes a lot to be able to make such demands, he says.

In the private sector If, on the other hand, it is not constitutionally protected to prevent physical interventions, what is applied is good practice in the labor market, he explains.

– Then it is the employer’s needs that are related to the procedure. In this case, it is a very large operation, he says.

However, he believes that employers may want to require vaccination to hire someone.

– That possibility exists. The position of the job seekers is unclear. The European Convention protects privacy, but it is not clear what applies here, he says.

Jeanette hedberg in SKR explains that municipalities and regions may need to relocate staff who are not vaccinated. Employers can do that, because they are very large, he explains.

But the question is what it will be like if it is not possible to relocate a person, for example, in a small business. Can the person be fired for lack of work? Jeanette Hedberg does not want to comment on this.

Petra Herzfeld Olsson does not believe that the fact that someone has not been vaccinated and cannot be relocated can be a factual basis for dismissal.

– I find it difficult to see that the Labor Court sees it as a good reason, he says.