Employers and trade unions jointly call for mandatory vaccinations

"It's an indisputable fact that the most effective method of fighting against contagious diseases, including COVID-19, are protective vaccinations, which are beneficial for both social life, and work environment. At the moment, vaccination against the SARS-CoV-2 virus are not obligatory outside the health care sector, and therefore social awareness plays a such a huge role in preventing the spread of infections through vaccination," we read in the appeal to the government.

The authors point out that nearly 77% of EU citizens have been vaccinated, whereas worldwide it's more than 42% of population - nearly 3.5 billion people. "Such a huge number of vaccinated people demonstrates safety of these products. Vaccinations not only limit transmission of the virus, but most of all the number of infections with severe symptoms and deaths. Unfortunately, vaccination statistics in Poland are much worse," employers and trade unions united in the Social Dialogue Council wrote.

According to Thursday's data issued by the Government Information Centre, Poland has administered 50,107,831 vaccine doses so far, while 21,514,286 citizens have been fully vaccinated. The authors of the appeal underscore that the vaccination rate in Poland is only approx. 54%. "This is certainly not enough to effectively curb the growing number of deaths and severe symptoms of the disease," they argued.

At the same time, the members of the Social Dialogue Council urge people to make use of free COVID-19 vaccination. "The statistics are merciless. 90% of those hospitalised or dying are unvaccinated people. Today, we still don't have effective medicines. Under these circumstances prevention is most effective," they stressed.

According to RDS, "COVID-19 may stay with us for a long time, and therefore we cannot allow ourselves to increase the risk and extend the state of the epidemic".

"Vaccination is currently the best form of fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time we call upon those in charge to introduce mandatory and general COVID-19 vaccination duty, except those otherwise advised by doctors, as well as preferential treatment of vaccinated persons," we read in the call.

The call was signed by members of the Social Dialogue Council - representatives of Confederation Lewiatan, NSZZ "Solidarność", Trade Unions Forum, All-Poland Alliance of Trade Unions (OPZZ), Business Centre Club, Federation of Polish Entrepreneurs, Employers of Poland, Union of Entrepreneurs and Employers, and Polish Craft Association.

"At least the social side of the RDS has enough courage to issue a clear statement regarding the fight against COVID-19," head of Confederation Lewiatan said on Twitter.

The Social Dialogue Council was established in 2015 and replaced the Tripartite Commission. The Council is a forum for dialogue between employers, employees and the government, and its specific competences and tasks are specified in the Act on the Social Dialogue Council.

The employers’ and employees’ sides are represented in the Council by representative organisations.

The Union of Entrepreneurs and Employers was recognised as a representative organisation by the decision of the District Court in Warsaw of 23rd March 2018. On 10th November 2018, the President of the Republic of Poland, Andrzej Duda, appointed representatives of the Union to the Social Dialogue Council.