Ikea has become the latest company to announce that it is cutting sick pay for unvaccinated staff who need to self-isolate because of Covid exposure, but will estate agents join a growing list of firms changing their rules given the current staff shortages?
The retail giant, which employs about 10,000 people in the UK, accepts that it was an “emotive topic” but said its policy had to evolve with changing circumstances.
At Ikea unvaccinated workers who are required to isolate could now receive as little as £96.35 a week – the Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) minimum.
Ikea said in a statement: “Fully vaccinated co-workers or those with mitigating circumstances will receive full pay for self-isolations.
“Unvaccinated co-workers will be paid in line with our company absence policy for self-isolation, with close-contact isolation being paid at Statutory Sick Pay.”
In England, people who are vaccinated with at least two doses need not self-isolate if they have been in close contact with someone infected with Covid. Unvaccinated people contacted through the government’s test-and-trace system must still isolate by law.
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Comments (34)
Will those in favour of this discriminatory argument be refusing to take new instructions from unvaccinated vendors or landlords and be asking for a vaccine passport alongside proof of funds before arranging viewings? The office Friday evening after work drinks will also have to be put on the back burner unless you plan on asking every punter in the establishment to prove their vaccination status.
Love it 🙂 why didn’t I think of that? 🙂
It’s a poll looking forward to the results the debate on this page will rolllllllllll on we’ve seen it all before on other platforms. Get on with it
A cracking question indeed.
The simple answer is I really don’t know about other people.
All I can do is do the best that I can do and hope that everyone else does the same.
Surely, isn’t that all any of us can do…?
But are you really doing the best you can do?
You could argue that, with the mindest available to you, yes you do, however you should consider the possibility that your current mindset does not serve your intention to do the best you can do.
My goodness! The language being used here is so very divisive.
Full disclosure – I’m son of a doctor and a nurse. I contracted Covid fairly early on, in March 2020. I have had both jabs and the booster.
I do not under ANY circumstances wish to infringe on anyone’s rights. I also totally accept that people are nervous about the vaccine for a number of reasons – some of the reasons are sensible, others not so much.
But I do have a question for you… It may at first seem completely unrelated, but I promise it’s worth considering and is pertinent to the topic at hand.
Fire-check doors in blocks of flats are mandatory. The reason is that they save lives.
However, contrary to popular belief, the lives being saved are not the ones on the inside of the fire-check door. They are installed so that everyone else can leave safely. If there is a fire in your kitchen then the fire-check door is there to prevent the fire spreading to the stairwell.
Whilst putting a needle in your arm is completely different from installing a door, the principle of protecting others is the same.
Covid is a novel disease – i.e. it’s new (at least the one that has brought the world to a standstill is).
Given that an employer has a moral responsibility to ALL their staff, not just the individuals, then this question has to be weighed and considered. Given that we all have a shared responsibility for each others Health & Safety, it rests with each and every one of us to consider our actions.
I am not saying that people MUST have the jab (legally speaking), but I do think that every individual must consider their options sincerely and honestly.
If you don’t want the vaccine (for whatever reason) that’s fine.
But that also means that if your employer takes the decision that their staff must be vaccinated to carry out their duties then that also has to be fine.
It surely makes sense that you can’t have different rules just because you feel like it.
Freedom of choice in this regard has to be applied equally.
Now, what happens in the circumstances being discussed above is definitely beyond my pay grade…
The fire safety comparison is completely invalid given that being vaccinated does not stop you in any way from spreading the virus. The majority of hospitalised patients are vaccinated, coupled with the fact that more people diagnosed with covid in hospitals actually caught it at the hospitals rather than arrived with it, proves that employers are not protecting anyone by forcing staff vaccinations.
Any employer doing this should be subject to prosecution for discrimination and human rights violations, in a just world this would be the case, luckily for them they will probably get away with it.
Those who fail to get vaccinated run a higher risk of developing a Covid infection and heighten the risk of becoming seriously ill. Their choice, their consequences.
The more people who are infected, the greater the liklihood that the virus will mutate – every virus does that. But the more mutations, the larger the risk that a much, much more deadly strain will evolve.
The greater the number of vaccinated people, the less the chances of that happening.
I will respect the right of people to choose not to get vaccinated. I hope that they will respect my right to hold them in utter contempt.
The mutation issue is very valid indeed. The larger the pool of unprotected people, the more chance the virus has to mutate.
It would appear that we have been lucky so far and that the mutations seen to date have made the virus easier to catch but perhaps less deadly.
Could you imagine if Omicron suddenly mutates into Pi (or Rho or Sigma or whatever) and turns nasty with either a “long Covid” sting in the tail or something that has a much higher mortality rate?
The more chances there are for the virus to mutate, the more likely this is to happen.
Whilst not inevitable, we all know that you will eventually roll a six if you keep rolling the dice often enough!
TBH, I have a feeling that the “Long Covid” sting is the most likely next “nasty” mutation and I’ll admit that it scares me.
Thanks you for effectively disproving the false narrative. The poster above should pay attention.
The research indicates the opposite, that the vaccinated are becoming a hub for the virus to mutate, not the unvaccinated.
It’s shocking to see how many false narratives are believed by the public, why does no one spend the time to source unbiased, uncensored information? Either pure laziness or simple naivety neither is acceptable.
I’m not giving an opinion the rest of it, but just to correct you – the majority of hospitalised patients are in fact, un-vaccinated.
That’s untrue
Hi there tp and thank you for your comment.
Unfortunately you have immediately fallen into some very common misconceptions.
There are indeed plenty of vaccinated people visiting hospitals, that I cannot deny.
However, most are actually not terribly unwell.
In most cases (but I agree not all) the people who are either seriously ill or dying are unvaccinated.
Your statement therefore becomes a glowing advert for everyone to get themselves vaccinated.
If an employer has gone through a well considered process to arrive at their decision then it is not discrimination, it is a business decision.
If they can show that they have had the wellbeing of their staff and customers in mind and have followed advice provided by people far more educated and specialised than I am in the field of virology then it becomes a sensible business decision.
Whether it is right or wrong is above my pay grade, but I very much doubt it could be considered a human rights violation.
Given that we should all be helping each other every day anyway, and I do actually mean throughout our whole lives, rather than just during a pandemic, taking sensible, reasonable and caring actions seems to be very appropriate to me.
You might think that I’m a “bleeding heart liberal” from the above, but that’s not true. I just want this to be over and done with. The sooner, the better. I want MY life back to normal.
It seems to me that the quickest way forward is to follow the very long established basic science behind virology itself (not just Covid) and have a solid mix of (1) people vaccinated, (2) people recovered from the disease and (3) the unfortunate victims (either dead or long term sick).
The task at hand seems to be to try and get as many people into groups (1) and (2) as possible whilst getting back to normal.
The more people that are not in groups (1) and (2) meant that there will be more people in group (3). I’m not a big fan of my friends and family being in group (3).
Thanks for your response, are you aware that the average age of covid death in the UK is higher than the average death age of males in the UK?
This absolutely can be considered a human rights violation, please read the Nuremberg code and you will see the violations occurring internationally, let’s not get this confused, none of the vaccines have full approval, they are still experimental.
The argument that this is not an experiment is entirely false, in fact, the official position from the WHO is that the vaccines are experimental.
I would completely disagree with the quickest way forward. Japan (as of a few days ago) drops ALL vaccine mandates and legalised ivermectin for treatment. There are various widely available drugs that are more effective than the vaccine, these are being suppressed and censored for this vaccine to be pushed. What is the need for this MERCK pill that the world is excited about which costs hundreds per does and has a 50% reduction in hospitalisations? In comparison to both Ivermectin and Monochromal-antibodies, these are both far inferior and more expensive treatments.
Quote – ” I just want this to be over and done with. The sooner, the better. I want MY life back to normal.”
The above is the exact reason that people are heading to the vaccine, in the belief this is what will make their life normal. You have other avenues of making your life normal which you are not considering, the officials pushing that vaccine have developed the narrative that it is the only way out.
Also, you should be aware that far more people are dying from myocarditis who never needed the vaccine, people hearts are swelling and they are dying and a ridiculous rate, there is no other vaccine that has ever been mass-produced which has killed so many people as a side effect. This, coupled with the fact that the majority of people do not need to be vaccinated as they are not high risk (and it doesn’t stop it spreading anyway) makes an argument for mass vaccination so weak that we have to start wondering why this is being forced so heavily.
You will undoubtedly not change your mind based on the text I have written but if you really want your life to go back to normal, I implore you to look into the alternative treatments, risks and drawbacks of the vaccine. Many people are still living a normal life, you do not need to absorb the fear the is intentionally being forced upon us.
must be a slow estate agency news day
I am shocked this is even up for discussion. Having the vaccine does not stop you being infected with Covid, it may reduce your symptoms and reaction…. May, because if we haven’t had it before we were vaccinated we have no idea at all how we would have reacted anyway. I stand by the choice (as a vaccinated individual) that having a vaccine is a personal choice.
Ask yourself, as an employer, if you basically pushed a vaccine on your staff with measures like this and then one of them had a serious ramification from that vaccine, how would you feel?
I have had two members of staff pregnant throughout this pandemic and, at every juncture, I have told them it is their choice. I would never force them to be vaccinated.
It’s not quite that simple. I would ask their reasons. If they think it’s due to genetic reprogramming or government microchips as opposed to genuine fears or concerns, or if they have already had covid, I may take a harder line.
What medical qualifications and credentials do you have to have this conversation about other human’s lives?
If not then mind your own business.
This is a dangerous road, you pretend to be omniscient as if your overall vision of what’s the right and wrong thing to do in this situation.
A lot of people feel uncomfortable explaining to others the risks of the vaccines given it’s been made such taboo, you do not have the right to expect this of people.
I really hope that everyone with a similar attitude to this has a member of staff that knows their rights, who then quits and takes your sorry little operation to the tribunal so you can receive a real education in HR.
Well tp2809,
I hope you don’t have a family member missing out on a life saving operation due to 80% of hospital beds being taken up by idiots who haven’t been jabbed. You may think slightly different then?
Your body your choice
no more no less
do your research as clearly you haven’t –
just switch off the BBC and carry out some real research.
This is absolutely hilarious considering the majority of patients in hospitals with covid are up to date on their vax.
Please do your research before wasting time, this is public information, stop assuming.
I suppose tp2809 is looking forward to the Australian Open tennis
Not sure if this is a joke that’s gone over my head but no, I’m not.
Such a pleasure to read the comments below this ridiculous article and poll. I’m glad there’s sensible people in the industry.
It’s not discrimination, its asking employees to take care of their health and do all they can to be in work, fit and able. Employers can manage their employees and expect them to take responsibility for their health and if it impacts on their absence levels, this should be managed through a disciplinary process following each absence.
What about fat people or those susceptible to illnesses? Should we cut their entitlements and basic liberties?
Should we be providing gymn memberships and telling staff what to eat in order to stay fit and reduce sickness levels? The whole things a nonsense. One of my vaccinated and boosted staff had to self isolate the whole of last week first week back. How frustrating that was.
Learn to live with this it’s not a killer as it once was. Scientists do recognise this hence the relaxation of travel policies. Just well out of order. Discriminating against people who choose for whatever reason not to take an injection is just disgusting. 6m people are unvaccinated
There’s no point in arguing about the technical with such a closed-minded idiot, the only problem is that these people seem to believe they have elevated authority in these matters, which should be made clear is not true.
Exactly!
James, you are a moron, there’s always an anomaly.
You have no right to ask your employee to do anything with their health as you are not qualified by any stretch of the imagination.
Taking responsibility for their health would be to ignore any imposition by their dinosaur boss and either proceed how they will ,based on their own medical decisions or leave said boss to extinction.
I really hope that you have a member of staff who doesn’t comply (as is their right), try to implement a disciplinary process for lack of vaccination and have said person present their case of unfair dismissal and discrimination to the tribunal, let’s see what the court would make of your imposition.
Companies run by idiots like James will be found out during this period, a family member of mine was discriminated against during covid by their estate agent employer (not myself of course), they’re now finalising a hefty settlement agreement to avoid a court settlement.
You are playing with fire that you do not understand James, stop trying to play god.
I’m appalled this question is even being asked! This is discrimination. IKEA should be ashamed.
Unless it’s for medical reasons, is there really anyone who hasn’t been vaccinated and is still coming to work among their colleagues?
I’m the owner of a business with five staff who have all been vaccinated. I am the only who has not. I did get Covid February 20. Confident with the antibodies my body would have produced.
No one in the team has issues with this.In fact a couple after their booster jabs regretted having it and are not taking future vaccinations.
It’s a choice, a basic human right we all should have. The division and segregation possibilities the government are promoting is seriously damaging to society.
That’s blatant discrimination. Will never happen in our business. What people chose for medication is not the employers business
100% agree.
Discrimination in any form should not be tolerated.