SA companies begin scrapping their Covid vaccine mandates

Big businesses in South Africa are beginning to drop compulsory Covid vaccinations and testing requirements for their workers, despite lobbying hard for such measures and announcing them with great fanfare at the start of 2022. 

Financial services giants Standard Bank and Old Mutual are among these businesses.

The two financial institutions say the mandatory policies are no longer required as most of their workforce (each at more than 90%) is already vaccinated against Covid. 

They also say the pandemic is at a stage where it is well-managed and understood, as reflected in the substantial easings of restrictions by the government, such as the scrapping of mask-wearing mandates.  

Lungisa Fuzile, the CEO of Standard Bank’s South Africa operations, puts it like this: “Based on the current context of the pandemic, we believe that our vaccination policy is no longer required. Consequently, it is no longer compulsory for employees to be vaccinated, or to produce a negative PCR or rapid antigen test if they are unvaccinated.”

Union pressure mounts

But there is possibly another reason why Standard Bank and Old Mutual have dropped their mandatory policy — a reason that neither company is arguably willing to admit. Both have already dismissed workers who refused to have the Covid jab, with Standard Bank firing at least 40 staff and Old Mutual parting ways with an estimated 89 employees. 

A trade union representing some workers of Standard Bank and Old Mutual was prepared to take both companies to court and challenge their sacking of the unvaccinated workers. 

The trade union is Sasbo, which has about 73,000 members in the financial services industry, including banks and insurers. Sasbo has been pressuring Standard Bank to withdraw its vaccine mandate, which the trade union said required all the bank’s workers to be vaccinated against Covid by 4 April 2022 — or face dismissal. 

Meanwhile, Old Mutual had a mandatory vaccination policy which it announced to the public in November 2021. Old Mutual gave its workers until January 2022 to produce certificates proving their vaccination status. Like Standard Bank, Old Mutual no longer has a vaccination policy. 

A Sasbo official told Business Maverick that its focus is getting other companies to repeal their vaccination mandates. Other business giants such as Sanlam, Momentum Metropolitan, Discovery and others implemented vaccine mandates earlier this year. They might be in Sasbo’s crosshairs.

Sasbo also wants to get unvaccinated workers who were fired reinstated to their positions. The union has vowed to challenge Standard Bank’s dismissal of at least 40 of its members for not complying with the vaccination policy. 

It’s unclear if Standard Bank and Old Mutual now plan to reinstate these dismissed workers and those who were placed on special leave. 

Labour federation Cosatu has joined the fray, calling for the reinstatement of the Standard Bank workers, adding that the dismissal of any worker “must be avoided at all costs”.

“Cosatu supports the vaccine rollout programme and as organised labour, we believe that education and addressing the fears of workers and society is the best way to persuade people to vaccinate. 

“Threatening and dismissing workers only serves to poison what has already become a very charged and divided debate across the world,” it said in a statement. 

Cosatu wants to challenge mandatory vaccinations at a national policy level, arguing that South Africa cannot afford more job losses.

Testing the validity of Covid mandates