#BTColumn – Will businesses insist on vaccinated money too?

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by this author are their own and do not represent the official position of the Barbados Today Inc.

by Roderick P Harris

The love of money continues to be the root of all evil. My subject headline may sound comical but hopefully by the end of my submission you would get my drift. Bear with me.

This whole jibber jabber (pun intended) about businesses insisting that employees be vaccinated or pay for their own regular COVID-19 tests because the employers want to “create a safe working environment” is absolutely farcical.

For those businesses who depend on customers and clients will you be demanding that those who want to do business with you must be vaccinated or present a recent PCR test?
Of course not!! Because the dollar is mightier than any pretense of a “safe work place”.

The majority of employers’ loyalty remains with the almighty dollar not the working men and women whose time and energy are expended on their enterprises. You mean to tell me that an employer is willing to part ways with an honest, hard-working individual with 25 or 30 years’ service over the issue of an experimental vaccine?

When I heard head of the Private Sector Association Ed Clarke speak with firmness that they are willing to test it in court it says to me that money continues to the King in Bim. No one truly cares about the average Joe.

Attention is only given to the average Joe when election time comes around. No one cares that daily people are experiencing adverse effects with these trial drugs. No one cares that the vaccinated are getting and spreading COVID-19 just like the unvaccinated.

These business people are so hell-bent on getting back to the financial place where they were prior to the COVID-19 pandemic that they do not care at what cost.

They are catching at any straw even straws that are not tried and tested. Who cares about the collateral damage?

We have big money to make and we will make it – seems to be the mentality. What is playing out here is tantamount to modern day slavery. ‘Coppers’ in the hands of Massa by any means necessary.

Speaking of Massa, there are many vaccinated who are possessed of the house slave mentality. They somehow believe they are set apart from and better than the unvaccinated.

A meme on social media best captures it: “Vaccinated people act like they died on the cross for our sins.” Somewhere along the line, somehow, the system, the governments, the scientists, the doctors and the billion-dollar making pharmaceutical companies have convinced the vaccinated that they are superior.

Talk about divide and rule. They have convinced them that they are invincible to the continuously-mutating and deadly coronavirus. How hilarious! Then again, the most effective way to get human beings to comply is to hang the threat of death over their heads. The ironic thing is death shall come to us all.

In your Thursday edition I read the words of the Chairman of the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA) Geoffrey Roach and all I could do is smile. He is still maintaining his association’s stance on vaccines or regular testing. I remember the issue of jab or test was first brought to the public by the said BHTA. Earlier this year they claimed that the tourists wanted to come to resorts, hotels etc, that had fully vaccinated staff.

What nonsense!

I believe they were testing the waters at that time. Here is the biggest irony. There are other major tourist destinations in the Caribbean have not imposed the vaccination mandate on their workers. It is no secret that places like St Lucia, St Kitts & Nevis and the Bahamas compete fiercely for tourists. And some years they outdo us by recording way higher tourists than we do.

But alas, they have not reported that tourists are demanding vaccinated destinations or places to stay. Actually, it has been quite the opposite. In the Bahamas the Tribune reported on July 28: “Health Minister Renward Wells has said the government is currently not considering making COVID-19 vaccines mandatory for healthcare workers or other workers even though recommendations have been put forward as vaccine hesitancy among the group remains a challenge.” The Bahamas won the 2021 Innovative Destination of the Year award in the Caribbean Travel Awards.

In St Kitts, their only mandate is for visitors not workers.  The St Kitts & Nevis Observer stated: “Effective May 29, 2021, only fully-vaccinated travellers will be allowed entry into St Kitts and Nevis until further notice. Exemptions will be considered for citizens and residents.” This was the pronouncement of Prime Minister Dr. Timothy Harris.

As for St Lucia, newly-elected Prime Minister Pierre said this week: “For now, we need to persuade and encourage citizens to comply with the protocol guidelines, not threaten and punish them to do so. I understand that for many of us, we have been called to do what does not come naturally and so there must be compassion and empathy.”

Seems it is only Barbados who are interested in imposing harsh, draconian and oppressive policies on workers in order to curry favour and fill the bank. But where is the Barbados Workers’ Union when you need them most?

Added to that irony, I have a close friend who along with about 10 other work colleagues were recently in quarantine for about a week because they were in contact with fully-vaccinated guests who were COVID-19 positive.

They work at a popular hotel on the West Coast. So, the concern of a safe working environment seems to only apply where the workers are concerned.

Apart from that, any seriousness about safety at work would have to take into account regular testing for both workers and customers; for both the vaccinated and unvaccinated. That is the only way to get close to a safe COVID-19 environment. But as long as businesses believe that a vaccine equates to the non-spread of the virus, they will continue to put themselves in harm’s way.

I therefore end where I began, if a business is truly serious about ensuring that their workplace is safe, they would be as concerned about their clients’ and customers’ status as they are about their workers. They would insist that those who conduct business with them are vaccinated as well.

Essentially, they will convince me and many others of their genuineness about providing a safe work place only when they require that the people who spend money at their establishments are vaccinated too.

This column was offered as a Letter to the Editor.