Sergey Tarasevich has spoken with RBC about the legality of suspending employees for refusing to vaccinate against COVID-19
Since 15th of December, companies in sectors subject to compulsory vaccination will not be able to operate unless at least 80% of employees have been vaccinated against COVID-19. In addition, an employee may be suspended from work without pay for refusing to vaccinate.
Sergey Tarasevich, Associate of Tax and Administrative Law practice at Maxima Legal, analyzed the legality of the measures and estimated the variants of situation development specially for RBC.
“It should be clarified that in accordance with the decree of Natalia Bashketova, the Chief State Sanitary Inspector of St Petersburg, only employees of certain groups are subject to vaccination. This includes, for example, employees working in education, healthcare, social security and social services, trade, including courier delivery, public catering, cultural, exhibition and educational events and other areas. If an employer falls into this sphere, he or she is obliged to ensure vaccination of employees.
Mandatory vaccination of the above categories is legal and does not violate any other provisions of Russian legislation. In addition, an employer is obliged to suspend an employee from work in cases provided for by the Labour Code, other federal laws and other regulatory legal acts. Thus, “On Immunoprophylaxis of Infectious Diseases” Federal Law states that lack of preventive vaccination leads to denial of employment or disqualification from work connected with a high risk of infectious diseases.
In contrast to dismissal, when a person is suspended from work, the place of work remains with the employee. As soon as the circumstances that led to the suspension are resolved (e.g. the employee is vaccinated), the employee can resume work. Suspension from work due to non-vaccination refers to cases where no pay will be assessed. Employees cannot be fired for refusing to vaccinate, and I and my colleagues have not encountered such examples.
Companies that belong to industries that are subject to compulsory vaccination have no legal way of not vaccinating 80% of employees and continuing to work. However, in this case, the question arises: what if half of the company’s employees are medically ineligible? In such a case, 80% is simply an unattainable figure. Current legislation does not answer this question.
Whether employers will go for mass suspensions or not is a difficult question. Employers are unlikely to want to pay fines. But if there will be mass suspensions, I think we should expect them as early as November 15, 2021 – by that date vaccination with the first component or one-component vaccine should be provided in St Petersburg.
To read the full text of the article (in Russian), please see the RBC website >>>