Russell: Constitutional rights under siege

Employment rights attorney Michelle Russell is warning Barbadians that their Constitutional rights are under siege by employers who continue to flout the laws of the land and go unreprimanded.

Her comments come against the backdrop of what she described as a “disturbing trend” of an increasing number of private sector businesses employing mandatory COVID-19 vaccine and testing policies even though they have no contractual or legal power to do so.  

“An employer gets his power from one of two things: the contract of employment or the law. So that if the employer wants to do something and the contract doesn’t give him the power to do it, he has to amend the contract but he can only do that with the consent of the employee once there is a fundamental change. If the employee doesn’t consent, the employer has to look to the law. And if nothing in law gives him the power to do it, then he cannot do it,” Russell said. 

“So how are employers requiring employees to be vaccinated by a particular date when our very Prime Minister, the chief officer of this land, said everybody has the right to choose whether or not to get vaccinated?”

While private sector organisations including the Barbados Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI), the Barbados Private Sector Association (BPSA), the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA), are all on record calling on Government to make vaccines mandatory for all front-line workers, the Mia Mottley Administration has maintained that it is not in favour of mandatory vaccination of Barbadians. In spite of no legislative framework, private sector entities such as Digicel Barbados Limited, Automotive Arts and Hill Milling Company Ltd., have imposed vaccine and testing policies.

In a video released Saturday night, Russell said that due to such actions it was beginning to look like the law no longer matters in Barbados. 

While she acknowledged the majority of employers have been doing “the right thing”, she reflected an uneasiness that the minority was increasing and she charged that over the last few weeks, almost every day she had learned of a new business joining the list of those in contravention of the law. (KC)