With the province announcing mandatory vaccination proof for certain social and recreational settings and events, the responsibility for that enforcement will largely fall on the employees at said events and businesses. How do we make sure they remain safe?
With the province announcing mandatory vaccination proof for certain social and recreational settings and events, the responsibility for that enforcement will largely fall on the employees at said events and businesses. How do we make sure they remain safe?
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Disclaimer: These interviews have been edited for clarity and length
Jackie: Hi, my name is Jackie Lamport. Today is Wednesday, August 25. Welcome to the Capital Daily Podcast. Today on the show, On Monday, the province announced that unvaccinated people will no longer be allowed to attend certain social and recreational settings and events. But that means frontline employees will largely be responsible for enforcing this policy. Today we speak to a food service union about keeping workers safe in the process.
COVID-19 cases in the province are once again hitting daily numbers akin to our second wave. But as we've speculated in multiple past episodes about the pandemic, this time, things are different. The goal of restrictions, as I've explained in the past, was never to hit COVID zero as much as that would be a very nice thing to happen. The goal is to keep our hospitals from becoming overwhelmed as well. Curbing spread lessens the opportunity for new, more dangerous variants to emerge. However, hospitalizations seem to be creeping up in a similar ratio to cases as seen in past waves. So yes, cases are spiking, and so are hospitalizations, despite about 75% of the eligible population over 12 years of age being fully vaccinated. And here's the thing you've been hearing a lot lately, the cases and hospitalizations skew heavily toward people who are unvaccinated. We also know vaccinations drastically decrease your chances of serious symptoms, which will keep people out of hospitals. So, shouldn't the ratio of cases to hospitalizations be down?
A group of BC modellers, including Dr. Dean Carlin, who has been on the podcast plenty of times in the past, release frequent projections for the province. In their most recent release, they predicted the ratio to stay about the same as it is. That's because not only are hospitalizations made up overwhelmingly of unvaccinated individuals, so are recorded cases. Therefore, we won't likely see a separation in the stats compared to our previous waves because the majority of people testing positive are not protected from severe symptoms. What we can take from that is that case numbers and hospitalizations won't show us what is different this time and won't alone show us what we need to be doing. We can also understand why we still need to be worried about the spike, despite growing apathy toward the safety of people who choose to be unvaccinated when they end up in hospitals and overwhelm our system, which reduces resources for people who are in need of care for other reasons.
We spoke a couple of weeks ago to an ethicist about how to respond to a wave that is largely caused by people who choose not to get vaccinated without having to have everyone in the province. Going back to another round of blanket restrictions, mental health and economic impacts need to be taken into account. As you most likely know by now, the province did make a bold move on Monday; they announced proof of vaccination would be required for all people wishing to attend certain social and recreational settings and events or non-essential services and businesses. So Novak's no movie ticket, no gym session, no dining in, no exceptions. Of course, to make a move this potentially controversial, the numbers really have to back that up, and they do. According to Dr. Bonnie Henry on Monday, the hospitalization rate for unvaccinated people in their newest data is 17.7 times higher than people who are fully vaccinated. And according to math done by our friends at CBC, that means during that time, 25% of the province was responsible for 84% of COVID hospitalizations. So by September 13, all eligible people over the age of 12 must provide proof of at least one dose of the vaccine to be admitted to these non-essential businesses, services and events.
By October 24, you'll need to provide proof of full vaccination. The province has explained that there will be a secure web link people will access that will provide the proof they need, which they can save for themselves. There is a learn more page on the government website for those looking for assistance. The day following the proof of vaccination announcement, so Tuesday, the province went further to bring back the indoor mask mandate province-wide. As we all recall, during the first run of mandatory masks, videos were surfacing almost daily of folks harassing employees or businesses trying to enforce the rule because, ultimately, enforcement does fall on employees facing customers. This was a concern I saw a lot as I was browsing through various forums, reading through people's discussions about the announcement. It was also one of the first things Co-Producer Emily Vance and I thought about when discussing how we wanted to cover this. So we decided to reach out to a Workers Union and hear what they think needs to happen to keep employees safe.
Emily Vance spoke to Kim Novak, the president of UFCW 1518. That's the BC branch of the Union of Food and Commercial Workers. They represent a number of retail stores, restaurants and hospitality businesses across the province. She also spoke with Jeff Bray, the Executive Director of the Downtown Victoria Business Association, to gauge how local businesses are feeling about the news. First, here's her interview with Kim Novak.
Emily: Kim, thank you so much for taking the time to join us on the show.
Kim: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Emily: So, first of all, what have you heard from the province about how these vaccine passports are going to work in practice for businesses?
Kim: Well, it's all still very new information and not a lot of the workplaces that we represent are going to require these passports at this point, which is why we pushed hard for essential workers like grocery workers and people who are working in retail stores, coffee shops, cannabis dispensaries, have a mask mandate reinforced through a public health order and limiting the number of people who are coming into those spaces. Ultimately, the passport does provide workers who work in non-essential workplaces with that added layer of protection of knowing who they're interacting with. Whereas in essential workplaces that we represent, we haven't seen that come into effect. So we want other layers of protection to be enforced.
Emily: So for those businesses that you represent that will be affected by the vaccine passport program, have you heard from anybody about what their thoughts are or what their concerns might be?
Kim: I think ultimately, there's a sense of relief for the workers that they will know who's coming into those work environments, the fact that they won't have to worry about people coming in and getting too close while wearing a mask and also not being vaccinated. Well, a lot of our members that the vast majority of our members have been vaccinated. Some of their family members that they go home to at the end of the day may not be eligible yet, especially if they have children or people who are medically unable to be vaccinated. So it's top of mind for them that their concern is their protection at work. How this will be enforced is something that we still need to get more information on. Like how will the passports be used when you go into a restaurant, for example, and who will be monitoring that and all of those details? At the end of the day, this is supposed to promote workplace safety, not burden those frontline workers working in places like restaurants.
Emily: I don't know if we have many details yet, but the burden of enforcement will fall on those frontline workers. They have been in an incredibly difficult situation throughout the pandemic.
Kim: I think we learned that I mean, the good thing about having the mask mandate come in last year, what it did is it highlighted for us the importance of putting that responsibility on employers, for them to be treating it the same way as they would treat any person who's coming into their workspace and violating the law suddenly starts smoking inside a restaurant, how is that enforced? That burden shouldn't be put on the workers; it should be put on management to ensure that they are taking care of that situation. So we would expect the same thing to happen for the enforcement of vaccine passports to ensure that, again, that's not to burden people trying to do their job to the best they can, making sure that they have a safe work environment.
Unfortunately, there have been incidents over the last year and a half through this pandemic of people being pretty aggressive when someone has said, "Hey, you need to put a mask on and now," Or, "Hey, you need to show me your passport before you can come in." That's why we need to make sure that that is lined up before this becomes effective in September.
Emily: What would your recommendations be for best practices in the workplace? If there's no provincial plan, is it similar to the masked mandate left up to businesses to enforce? What would you want to see to protect the rights and safety of workers?
Kim: The biggest thing is making sure that workers are educated and know that they have the right to refuse unsafe work. That's what we did, and I liken it again to that mask mandate is if someone walks into your workspace at a time where a mask mandate is up to provincial health order, you have the right to refuse unsafe work, walk away, report that incident to management into your shop steward and unionized locations to ensure that it's been documented, but that you're putting your own health and safety first. So we will be doing a lot of education and working with employers and health and safety committees in the units that we do represent that have the passports coming into effect so that everybody is very educated and informed about their rights when this comes into effect.
Emily: Do you expect that there will be training or any extra compensation for employees who will be bearing the brunt of this? Or is that something that you would call for?
Kim: Definitely for training, and we've been advocating for pandemic pay throughout this crisis. We saw it come into effect for some of our members and most of our members earlier because they are taking on an extra burden. They're working on the frontlines and working in industries that have been hard hit by the pandemic, but also that have been very, very busy. Again, those restaurant industries are seeing such shortages right now. Then, you add on this other layer on top of it, and they should be better compensated for the work they're doing. They should have the training and their rights to make sure that they're safe in their workplace.
Emily: I was curious about what you thought about how the worker shortage would play into this. We're seeing that across the board in BC that restaurants are really struggling, some of them closing early.
Kim: Closing early and warnings that when you sit down to expect that you're not going to see another server again for 2030 minutes. That's an incredibly stressful environment that workers are in right now. It highlights that throughout the pandemic, restaurants were closed as people were leaving the industry and not coming back. I think that does go to better working conditions, respect in the workplace, and better compensation because this is valuable work. People are anxious to get back out and to socialize and to be in restaurant spaces, but the workers need to be treated well so that they want to come back to those environments, too. I think this is opening up our eyes to the fact that maybe this work hasn't been as valid as it should be, and there needs to be a lens put on not only making it safe work environments but compensated in a way that people are encouraged to want to go back to those workplaces.
Emily: You did mention the mask mandate and reaction from the public and how workers were being asked to enforce that. What did we learn from workplaces that can apply or expect going forward in terms of this vaccine mandate?
Kim: I think when it becomes a mandate, it's different than a recommendation. So what we noticed when the masks were a recommendation was that people may or may not wear them. So even if a workplace decided to put up a sign saying that they were required, if it wasn't a public health order, that's where there was a lot of pushback coming from customers, and then the burden was put on to workers. I think; similarly, these vaccine passports are now required to go into these spaces like restaurants and bars. As a result, it isn't at the discretion of that particular location, and it has to be enforced at the fact that it is a public health order. So hopefully, that will help translate into more people adhering to it rather than following it, maybe because it's a recommendation.
Emily: What are some best practices that workplaces can follow in terms of keeping those frontline employees safe when they're dealing with the public and people who may or may not be upset or frustrated?
Kim: Training, like I said, making sure health and safety committees are very well informed about people's rights and educating staff about that. And also to the customers and the kind, being kind, being patient and respecting people's space, now that we do have this mask mandate back into effect as of tomorrow in the province, which is great. Prior to that, many frontline workers were getting criticized for still wearing masks, even though the mandate had been previously lifted.
I think the best practice that we've seen in the locations that have been the most effective at being able to de-escalate is making sure that there is enough staff available that they're supported and making sure management is aware of what the protocol is in case someone does not follow it if they are kind of trying to come in without one of these passports or without a mask on and then ultimately limiting the number of people and crowding. I think that also really helps to deter incidents from escalating, and we have seen, unfortunately, over the last few months, a lot of workplaces no longer limiting the number of people coming into the stores or if the restaurants, but also crowding happening in there; that always creates more of an escalation. So if we can put those back into place, which is certainly a best practice, we've seen work very effectively.
Emily: What kind of support do you want to see from the province here?
Kim: I think there needs to be very clear communication that this announcement was made yesterday. How exactly is it going to be applied? How do these passports work, and how do people register for them? With the communication coming directly from the government issuing these mandates and requirements, it eases the burden on workers. If people aren't clear on how to register for a passport or how to show proof of vaccination, then they're going to take their frustration out on the people who are saying you can't come into this restaurant until I see it. So I would say that from the province, we expect very clear direct communication support for people trying to register to ensure that they have an adequate passport ready and available to go because that will ultimately help the experience for workers when people are coming into their workplaces.
Emily: From what we've seen, judging by the previous provincial mask mandate, was that kind of support available from the province?
Kim: I think there was so much talk going into that mask mandate, there was a lot of confusion, we started to see some workplaces were implementing it and requiring it for their staff, but not for their customers, some business, we're doing it for customers. So once it became a mandate, the communication was a little slow on the uptake, but then we saw it worked very effectively and then it just became a way of life. We just saw that you want to go into this area if you want to take a ferry. You want to go and get something to eat, and you're wearing a mask when you walk inside, if you're going into a grocery store, you're wearing a mask to go into the restaurant, before you get to your table, you're wearing a mask. And so we just saw it kind of take over because of that repetition because of that continuation, and because of enforcement from the province to ensure that it wasn't just a recommendation anymore, that it was a requirement. And I think that that differential is incredibly important to make this a success.
Emily: Just going back to that point of workers being informed about their rights to refuse unsafe work. We know that those rights exist, but putting them into practice when a frontline worker is not always the easiest. What other kinds of support would you want to see to strengthen that ability for people to say no to unsafe work?
Kim: I think seeing the media is very helpful in that it can be very helpful in that we've seen examples of when people have said no and refused service, and then we've seen pickup supporting that and supporting those rights so that people aren't criticized for the fact that no, they're not trying to be difficult they're not trying to refuse service, because that's what they've decided to do today. They're putting their health and safety as they should at the forefront of that interaction. So when we see media stories that celebrate that and reinforce the importance of doing that, I think it gives confidence to workers that they do have these rights but that they also won't be criticized for it. You're right, and it does come with a lot of concern about "Oh, no and what if I say no." Or, "I know this person who shops here, ordines here all the time, and I don't want to necessarily have this conflict."
I think the other important thing is management, their responsibility to support and stand behind all of their workers unequivocally when they are saying they are refusing unsafe work. Putting that burden back on employers because these are the faces, and these are the people who have allowed them to continue to run their businesses in an incredibly challenging year, particularly for the restaurant industry. So having the backup of those workers will be very important for this to be successful going forward and to keep businesses COVID free and open and running.
Emily: How will the UFCW be supporting businesses as we move into this new phase?
Kim: Well, I think a lot of the small businesses that we represent, but we want to do everything we can to support them, we want to work closely with them to make sure that their committees in the locations that they read that they work in are up to speed on the protocols, following the protocols, making sure that they are staying up and running rather than being threatened by potential COVID cases or outbreaks. So anything that we can do to support our members and have them working helps business because we want to see businesses stay open when they are closed. We saw a lot of our members potentially out of work, and that's a devastating thing to be going through during this time. We will continue our outreach with those employers and, most importantly, keep our own workplace leaders like the shop stewards there. We're going to advocate with the government as we did on the mask mandate returning limiting crowds. All those things are held to help businesses rather than hinder business by keeping them up and running so that they're not dealing with COVID outbreaks.
Emily: Anything else you think is important to bring up in this context or that you wanted to add?
Kim: I want to thank you for doing the story. I think this has been a particularly hard year, especially for our members working in the restaurant industry. It's been so unpredictable, whether the dining will be open or closed patios, they move to Plexiglas, and it's been all over the place. So I think doing podcasts and doing stories like this, to tell to give an inside look at what they're facing, helps the public respect and recognize those challenges and hardships and hopefully makes this transition to vaccine passports easier for everybody so that the public can enjoy their time in restaurants but also frontline workers don't have to worry about having to take on an extra burden. So thank you, guys.
Emily: Absolutely, it was one of my first thoughts as a former restaurant worker of a long time, and I thought so many people had left the industry and the people who remain. Thank you so much for your time, Kim. I appreciate it.
Jackie: Now, for the more local look about how businesses will deal with this, Emily speaks with Jeff Bray, the Executive Director of the Downtown Victoria Business Association.
Emily: Jeff, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us on the show today.
Jeff: No problem, it's my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Emily: So, first of all, what are your first thoughts about the vaccine passport regarding how it will affect businesses in Victoria?
Jeff: The vaccine or the passport will only be mandated for certain types of discretionary businesses like restaurants, nightclubs, certain areas of fitness gyms, etc. So it doesn't necessarily affect every single type of business downtown. I think it's going to be a bit of a sort of a mixed reaction from businesses. On the one hand, many of our members like having certain certainty with respect to some of these regulations. And so when the government mandates it, it kind of gets the individual business owner or the floor manager or whoever it is kind of out of the middle of it. So that takes a bit of the pressure off on that end. On the flip side, it then falls to frontline staff to enforce the mandate. That can be stressful, especially in certain businesses with younger employees who have to enforce a provincial mandate; that can create some difficult situations.
I can imagine the pub at 10 p.m., and a group go out, and one of them forgets their phone, maybe they've already had a few beverages. Now they're all being barred from the bar because one of their friends can't get in, and that may create some tension or conflict. However, generally speaking, I think having it mandated alleviates the pressure on the individual businesses.
Emily: My first thought was, "How will frontline workers in restaurants and retail, who are already so overworked and understaffed, manage?" We haven't heard a lot about the details from the province in terms of if there's going to be a unified rollout, but what are you hoping to see in terms of provincial policy that would support businesses in enforcing this mandate?
Jeff: If we were called to some of the earlier restaurants, they had to have some form of process to do contact tracing. Restaurants have already kind of moved to be able to do that kind of work right at the front door. So I hope that the province rules out, as described by Dr. Henry and the Premier, that it's a simple app on the phone or a simple card for those you know, don't have a phone or can't use a phone. Then, you simply show your IDs so that it's a very quick process that would allow staff to move people through the front door quite quickly. Some restaurants have host and hostess stations, to begin with, stand and wait to be seated. So as long as it's simple and clear, I don't foresee it being too much of a burden for businesses that are required to check that to be able to do that.
Emily: I know we're in the early stages, but what are some of the reactions you've heard from businesses so far?
Jeff: For a lot of them, the devil's in the details. I had a couple of conversations. One was at a fitness facility that wanted some kind of mandate because they were enforcing it, and most of their clients were happy that they were. However, they felt that some clients still didn't feel safe coming in unless they knew everybody else in the facility was vaccinated. So I think, generally speaking, businesses will be okay with it. Right now, they're very busy. Restaurants are full, and hotels are full; I suspected that this wouldn't have any sort of negative impact in the short term or the medium term. Of course, it'll be interesting to see how long the school is. My understanding is that the sort of vaccine passport vaccine card has a current expiry date of January 31. Certainly, I would hope that we would be in step four long before that. But I think again, if most people who know that they have to have this go out to a restaurant or a gym or a concert, there shouldn't be too much impact on frontline staff, because everybody's going to have their passport on their phone. So and I suspect that that is, in part, the motivation behind the rollout is they didn't go. You can still go to thrift stores without this. There are lots of things you can still do without the passport, but some of the more social or fun things, you have to have the passport. I imagine that the hope is that his university students come back to school. People are coming back into the office that that cohort that has yet to do the vaccine is motivated to do it to continue to participate in those things.
Emily: What impact do you think this will have on the day-to-day operations of those businesses that are discretionary, where vaccines will be required to enter?
Jeff: Yeah, I generally think, probably pretty minimal. Again, anybody operating where they had to already have contact tracing, or they were in some way, controlling accent, you know, occupancy access probably isn't going to be too much of a difference. I think if there's a business that hadn't been doing any of that beforehand, they're gonna have to figure out a system. Generally speaking, I don't think this will have a significant impact. My expectation is that the vast majority of people coming on September 13 who arrive at a business will already have the passport, and it'll be a pretty quick process.
Emily: What kind of guidance will you be looking to the province to provide for these businesses?
Jeff: Well, I think it's the keep it simple mantra that, for the public, and therefore, as simple as possible for the enforcers, which is going to be frontline staff. So again, if you go to a restaurant, and there's a university student who's there at the host table, you know, make sure that it's easy for the public to be able to show it, easy for the staff to be able to verify it. And then things can proceed fairly quickly. I think the more exemptions you build into a system, the more complicated it is. Right now, there are no exemptions. No passport, no entry, and that keeps it clean and simple. My hope is if this is going to be short-term, measure that they keep it that way.
Emily: One impetus for having this conversation today is just thinking about restaurant frontline workers; staff shortages already impact them. They've been dealing with the public's reactions, for better or for worse, for the past year and a half. What do you think are some ways that businesses should be supporting their employees through this time?
Jeff: Good employers always support their employees. One of them is certainly making sure that systems are in place that if a member of the public is being difficult, the business looks after the employee and, quite frankly, maybe shows that that agitated customer the door. I think right now, the challenge for businesses across all sorts of sectors is just finding people. Right now, you're seeing that there are businesses that are not operating their full normal hours because they simply don't have the staff. You can only ask people to do so much even under the law, so I think good employers are finding ways to support their staff and certainly, you know, that comes across and inflexibility and in pay and benefits. I would imagine that that will continue, and hopefully, with the return of more immigration, we will see some additional people coming into the labour pool, which I think should help both current employees that are, doing a lot but also for the business owners to be able to increase their hours or reduce the workload on their staff, and that will make a big difference come sort of September.
Emily: Anything else that you think is important to bring up?
Jeff: We've had very few incidents in Greater Victoria, where people have created a problem for staff; we're simply enforcing provincial guidelines and provincial mandates. My urging to the public is to continue to set that great example we have here in Greater Victoria about, you know, being patient, being respectful and recognizing that the folks who are showing up to work are there to serve you as the customer. So I would hope that the public would continue, really what they've done. We've had very few ugly YouTube videos from greater Victoria, and I'd hope that would continue.
Our hope is that what got businesses through the pandemic, on top of some of the provincial and the federal programs around wage subsidy and commercial work, really has been the concerted efforts the greater Victorians have had in shopping local and making those purposeful local shopping decisions. As we head into the fall and what limited tourism season we've had, you know, starts to evaporate his kids are back in school is that I would hope that we would continue to do that and think about shopping local and supporting those local businesses, because it really is kept those businesses whole and kept those jobs here and that's been critical. We've come through this. Certainly a lot better than many other jurisdictions in North America, and that's been one of the keys. So I would urge greater Victorians to continue to be so great and support local.
Emily: Point taken. Thank you so much, Jeff, for joining the show. I guess we will look to the future to see what happens here.
Jeff: Absolutely, and let's get those vaccination numbers up. We're doing very well in Vancouver, and we're doing even better on Vancouver Island. Let's keep those numbers going so that we can get back to normal as soon as possible.
Emily: Agreed. Okay, thank you so much.
Jeff: Thank you, Emily.
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Thanks again for joining us today. If you enjoyed the show, please leave a rating and review and also subscribe so that you don't miss any episodes going forward. We post new shows every Monday to Friday. My name is Jackie Landport. This is the Capital Daily Podcast. We'll talk to you tomorrow.