Workers in selected sectors in Singapore will be required to either be vaccinated or undergo regular testing from 1 October, starting with the public service.
In an updated advisory issued on Monday (23 Aug), the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) said that under the “Vaccinate or Regular Test” (VoRT) regime, employers will be required to bear some costs that are “necessary and common” for both vaccinated and unvaccinated employees.
Employers, however, can require medically eligible but unvaccinated employees, excluding employees who are medically ineligible for mRNA vaccines, to bear additional costs such as COVID-19 related expenses.
“These expenses can be recovered either through salary deductions or by requiring these employees to pay the relevant service provider directly,” said MOM.
Unvaccinated employees may be discharged later from treatment or may be served with longer periods of movement restrictions such as Stay-Home Notices compared to vaccinated employees, the ministry added.
“In such situations, employers can require that the additional days a medically eligible but unvaccinated employee has to serve, be taken from existing leave entitlements.
“If leave entitlements have been exhausted, employers may require such an employee to go on no-pay leave,” said MOM.
Employers may also opt to exclude these employees from medical benefits associated with COVID-19 such as insurance coverage.
The frequency of testing can be derived from the frequency under the Ministry of Health (MOH)’s guidelines, such as twice a week for unvaccinated employees in selected sectors.
A test done under the existing Fast and Easy Testing (FET) or the Rostered Routine Testing (RRT) regime, namely either a Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test or supervised FET, also counts towards this requirement, said the ministry.
Unvaccinated employees may also be required to undergo Pre-Event Testing (PET) before participating in workplace events.
Smaller group sizes may also be arranged when unvaccinated employees participate in such events, especially those involving mask-off activities, in line with the prevailing MOH guidelines.
While employers may continue to deploy unvaccinated employees in higher-risk activities with regular testing, they can also decide whether to redeploy these employees to another job with lower risk of COVID-19 infection, commensurate with the employee’s experience and skills, as per existing redeployment policies, said MOM.
If there are no existing redeployment policies within the organisation, the terms and conditions for redeployment should be mutually agreed between employers and employees, the ministry added.
Employers can also, on their own accord, implement other workplace measures.
In doing so, employers must be prepared to justify to employees and/or the Government in the event of a dispute that such measures are reasonable and necessary for business operations and to better protect the health and safety of all employees, MOM said.
Such measures may be mutually agreed upon by the union and the employer.
MOM stressed, however, that employers should not any under circumstances terminate or threaten to terminate the service of an employee on the basis of their vaccination status alone.
Employers should also not place employees on no-pay leave for an extended duration without their mutual consent in writing.
However, employers may exercise their right to contractually terminate employment if unvaccinated employees do not comply with reasonable vaccination differentiated workplace measures, said the ministry.
