GraceKennedy Group CEO Don Wehby has announced a vaccine mandate for his staff across the world and has extended the requirement for the conglomerate’s contractors and consultants.

However, Wehby says extending the mandate to include non-staff personnel is not an overreach.

He told the Jamaica Observer, “Some of these contractors and consultants, they interact with our staff on a daily basis, just like any other staff member…and my responsibility is to ensure the staff have a safe working environment. So if we have people interacting with [our staff] on a daily basis, whether contractor or consultant, based on the nature of our business, they will have to fall under our policy.”

Wehby had a virtual town hall meeting with staff on Wednesday to affirm the company’s position and take questions on the matter. He said he told them the mandate was considered because GraceKennedy has a duty to provide “a safe place of work for our team, business partners and customers”.

Over 500 GraceKennedy employees joined the meeting. Professor of Public Health, Epidemiology and HIV/AIDS Dr Peter Figueroa also presented on the importance of COVID-19 vaccination and participated in the question-and-answer segment at the town hall.

GraceKennedy’s vaccine mandate is expected to take effect on April 29, after several stages of implementation. At the first stage, on January 14, employees are required to start declaring their vaccination status to the company.

Wehby told the Business Observer, “We got legal advice on that, one of the things I would say to you is that the legal advice is that if they don’t declare their vaccination status, we should assume they are unvaccinated.”

The company says its employees, contractors, and consultants who remain unvaccinated after April 29 will be required to take a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test every two weeks at their own expense. All are required to be fully or partially vaccinated by February 11.

Wehby said with GraceKennedy being an international company, the creation of the policy took some time, because expert advice was sought on how to proceed in the various countries in which GraceKennedy operates.

“I’ve been having communications with the staff for two years on the whole COVID-19 matter, sending e-mail and newsletters. Obviously…we got some tough questions, and I thought we answered them adequately, and…I would say while there is apprehension by some, I think the majority are well on board with the policy and understand where we are coming from as a company,” Wehby said.

In a release, the company also pointed out that it brought in medical experts to answer questions and had vaccination blitzes to help boost the number of vaccinated employees, but “vaccination rates across our group vary considerably by location, and in some places, they remain too low.

“This is particularly worrying as the highly contagious Omicron variant of the virus spreads around the world.”

Wehby declined to tell the Business Observer the vaccination rates across the GraceKennedy Group, but assured it was “significantly” above the national average of just over 20 per cent, but not enough to prevent the mandate.

He said that’s why the company was very careful in rolling out the policy, because he had to be satisfied that all the points had been adequately covered by the company’s human resource and legal teams.

Asked about the matter of employees bringing a case with the recent court ruling in the matter of Cari-Med vs five of its employees that vaccine mandates could be a breach of contract, Wehby indicated that he was not worried. “We had legal advice and we have followed all the rules and all the steps very carefully,” he added.

The Cari-Med workers and a senior data analyst at Digicel Jamaica lost their bid to get an injunction blocking the enforcement of their companies’ policies. The Digicel employee, who also filed a constitutional claim, had that claim struck out. The Cari-Med team also lost their constitutionality challenge to their company’s mandate and is seeking to appeal. A case involving investment firm AIC Jamaica has been withdrawn from the courts.

Wehby explained that the timing of the policy and timelines included in the vaccination directive have been carefully considered based on the availability of COVID-19 vaccines in the markets where GK operates around the world, and the time required between the first and second dose of some types of vaccines.

The policy will apply to all new and existing employees of GK and will also extend to the company’s third-party contractors, consultants, and independent contractors. Applications for exemptions from the vaccination directive for medical reasons will be considered.

“We thought about it long and hard, it’s very important that we have this vaccine policy,” he concluded.

The expectation is that more companies will follow. The Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) has been pushing, but some people are still on the fence.