- Labour unions have called for the reinstatement of employees dismissed at Old Mutual and Standard Bank for refusing vaccinations.
- This after the two financial groups scrapped their mandatory vaccination policies.
- Legal experts say companies can only be forced to reinstate employees iftheywere unfairly dismissed.
Standard Bank should reinstate the 40 people it fired for refusing to get Covid-19 vaccinations, trade union Cosatu said on Tuesday.
The call follows an earlier demand by the financial sector union, Sasbo, which called on both the bank and the 46 Old Mutual employees, who were fired for refusing jabs, to be reinstated.
The two financial services groups have since scrapped their mandatory vaccination policies after assessing the state of the pandemic in the country.
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In June, a commissioner at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) ruled that dismissing an employee for refusing a vaccine to be "substantively unfair" and "unconstitutional".
News24 looked at why Standard Bank and Old Mutual scrapped their mandatory vaccination policies, whether people can still be fired for refusing a vaccination, and whether fired employees can be reinstated:
Why have Standard Bank and Old Mutual scrapped their mandatory vaccination policies?
Standard Bank scrapped its mandatory vaccination policy, in place since December, on Monday, after Old Mutual scrapped theirs in June.
Standard Bank SA CEO Lungisa Fuzile informed employees it would be revising some of its safety measures and the existing Covid-19 policies on 23 June.
"Based on the current context of the pandemic, we believe that our vaccination policy is no longer required," Fuzile said.
"Consequentially, it is no longer compulsory for employees to be vaccinated, or to produce a negative PCR or Rapid Antigen test if they are unvaccinated, in order to enter our premises."
Can you still be fired for refusing a Covid-19 vaccination?
Speaking to Fin24, Lauren Salt, a director at the law firm ENSafrica's employment practice, said the CCMA did not follow a rule of binding precedent.
"There can be awards involving the same employer and the same policy which differ in their conclusion," she told Fin24.
"Each case will be based on the facts specific to that case and the evidence led during that specific arbitration, both of which can differ from case to case."
Salt said "new" judgments did not overturn previous ones. "This award does not have any impact on any previous awards rendered by the CCMA on mandatory vaccination."
EXPLAINER | Can you be fired for refusing a Covid-19 vaccination?
A CMMA commissioner may have sided with a former employee in one case, but there is no guarantee it will continue to find vaccine mandates are unfair.
University of Free State Department of Mercantile Law, Faculty of Law lecturer Maralize Conradie told News24 if a risk assessment by an organisation indicated it was necessary to be vaccinated, it might still require forced vaccinations and vice versa.
Should the fired Standard Bank employees be reinstated?
Conradie said reinstatement might only be ordered as a remedy if it was found an employee was unfairly dismissed.
"An employee will therefore have to prove that it was unfair at the time of dismissal. The employee will have to prove that the employer did not have a valid reason [policy] at the time of dismissal," she added.
"If the employee was dismissed for misconduct/incapacity [such as] refusing to be vaccinated, and it was fair at the time of dismissal, it will be almost impossible to prove that it is unfair at a later stage because policies changed."
