Charlie Mullins was on point with Brexit*. However, he’s bought wholesale into project fear this time.
Pimlico Plumbers will introduce a “no jab, no job” policy requiring all of its workers to be vaccinated against Covid-19.
Charlie Mullins, Pimlico’s founder and former chief executive, now chairman, said the company’s lawyers were drafting new employment contracts for its 400-strong workforce to include the vaccine requirement.
It is not the role of an employer to force someone to have a foreign substance put into their body or require it to work.
Yes, yes, the “my gaff, my rules” argument. Except as with the social media argument, that position is rapidly becoming outdated by events. What we are seeing here is the Chinese Social Credit system being snuck in by the back door.
Later on he goes on to make the case for injections before travelling to certain parts of the world. Yes, fair enough. However, we can choose not to go there. Also, these vaccines are well established and are not experimental. This, along with the likely low efficacy of the new vaccines that do not prevent infection or spread, places perfectly reasonable practical objections in the way of his hysterical “danger to the business” bullshit.
Retroactively and unilaterally changing a contract is, itself, a breach of contract. Once one party has done this without the agreement of the other party, the contract is now void.
Let’s put it this way – even if I was planning to be vaccinated or even had already been vaccinated, I would refuse to sign a contract mandating it, because employers who make these demands are crossing the line between the professional and the personal. Some employers – and it would appear that Mullins is one such – seem to think that they own the people who work for them to the point of owning their bodies and they need to be reminded forcibly that there is a line.
Bearing in mind that plumbers are always in demand, walking away from Mullins’ outfit would be a similar risk to the one I took when I walked away from a driving school over a broken contract – fairly low risk and likely to remain in work. If everyone took the same robust stance, it is Mullins who would be struggling here. Unfortunately, too many people have bought into project fear and most are likely to comply.
*Edited to add – I cocked up on Mullins being a Brexiteer. My memory was playing tricks last night.
As at least some of these vaccines are based on experimental tech, wouldn’t this sort of coercion go against the informed consent and voluntary clauses of the Nuremberg medical ethics code? https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/medical-magazines/nuremberg-code-establishes-principle-informed-consent
It would. Hence my objection.
Dear Mr Longrider
Do you still need a passport to Pimlico?
DP
It would seem so.
https://twitter.com/PimlicoPlumbers/status/1349833556319731726?s=20
Have heard similar stories elsewhere though.
Yes, several outlets were reporting this. One of two things has happened, Mullins did say this and has been forced to backtrack or the papers have made it all up.
Okay, having done a bit of searching, it seems that Mullins was shooting his mouth off with Jeremy Vine. Saying one thing on air, but another in Twitter. He knows full well that he can’t actually do it, but was implying that he could during the interview.
Every conservative is totally in favour of the sanctity private property and freedom of contract.
Until they’re not, because reasons.
Every employer I know, including me, already has a ‘social credit’ system, often informal, but strongly held and enforced. Me, I don’t keep people who drink more than I think appropriate, who don’t pay their child support or get too many driving infraction tickets.
And changing an employment contract on proper notice is entirely legal and proper.
Okay, this will be a bit of a long one as there’s a fair bit to unpick.
Firstly, who said I was a conservative? I certainly haven’t and I’m not. If you really must apply a label to me, then the closest fit would be classical liberal.
You appear to be implying that I don’t know how contract law works or that I am somehow exercising double standards, neither of which is the case.
I’ve had direct experience dealing with contracts and on one occasion, the other party decided to unilaterally vary the contract such that it was heavily skewed in their favour. Contracts are only enforceable when freely entered into and signed by both parties (and in the UK at least, fair to both parties as we have the unfair contract terms act.). I refused to agree this and walked. Sure the bastards tried to scare me with solicitor’s letters but I called their bluff and they backed down as they knew full well that it was they, not I that had nullified the contract. The contract between us no longer applied due to the unilateral variation. That is the point I made in my post – once a party unilaterally varies the contract, the contract is now void and the variation needs to be agreed. In the case of a contract seeking to impose vaccination, as this would be in breach of the Nuremberg ethics code, a court would not uphold it and it is an unfair contract term. Employers do not have rights over an employee’s body, just as they do not have rights over their time outside of work – beyond strict minimal circumstances where it directly impacts their business.
At no time did I say – or imply – that one party cannot seek to change a contract or that doing so is illegal.
As far as the social credit is concerned, Addolff has already answered this one. For most of my adult life I’ve been self-employed through preference. Largely because employers tend to get too big for their boots and assume that they somehow own employees. The contract between the two parties is simple enough – the employer pays employees for time, labour and expertise. That’s it. Nothing more. What they get up to outside of work is none of the employer’s business.
If they turned up for work incapable through drink, then yes, it’s impacting work and the employer is then entitled to do something about it, but otherwise, no, absolutely not. As an employer you have no business even knowing let alone having enough information to make a judgement. All you need to know is are they at work on time, do they perform their duties to the required standard? If the answer to that is “yes” then you need to know nothing more.
I made damned sure my employers maintained the appropriate distance by placing a barrier between the professional and personal parts of my life and the employer was never allowed to cross it. The employer didn’t know whether I drank or not, let alone how much. Likewise if I had any points on my driving licence (except for the brief period when I was driving their vehicles). If I worked for you – despite it being incredibly brief – you wouldn’t be allowed access to enough information to make your judgements. I would turn up on time, do the work to the required standard and then disappear. Everything about me outside of work would be an enigma. If I was employed, my minimal social media account would be locked down so hard, you wouldn’t find it – that’s if I had one, which for all of the time I was employed, I didn’t. Nor would I attend any works arranged social events, nor share with you anything about my personal life. It was a system that worked well for me. In fact, I treated my employers as I do my clients – I do the work and you mind your business and keep out of mine, thank you very much.
Horrific. He does not own their bodies, and it’s abhorrent that he believes he has the right to coerce them to have experimental and irreversible ‘tech’ injected into them.
I hope his business suffers the proper consequences
Fred Z, what next? Don’t employ Conservatives, don’t employ women, don’t employ gays, don’t employ blacks, don’t employ Man. U supporters?
There is a line – if an employees behaviour negatively affects their ability to do the job you pay them to do then by all means, ask them to change their behaviour and if they don’t, sack them. But to tell someone they will be sacked if they do not have a medical procedure that will permanently alter their DNA? Really?
No vaccine will permanently alter anyone’s DNA. Including these experimental mRNA vaccines.
Charlie Mullins was a strong Remainer, not a Brexiteer.
I don’t really buy the “it’s a free market” argument in cases like this, as there is such a disparity in bargaining power between employer and employee, and many employers in effect enjoy a monopsony in hiring labour.
Employment should be a strict contractual relationship – I do some work, and you pay me some money. Anything not directly relevant to the work in question should be none of the employer’s business.
There must also be a strong chance that this represents illegal discrimination.
Oops, yes you are right. I wonder who I was thinking of? That said, I know that I’d found myself in agreement with him but it was more recent than I remembered.
If I was a plumber there I would be rubbing my hands with glee at the upcoming payout for unfair dismissal.
Commuters to Waterloo will recall that on a Pimlico Plumbers building between Vauxhall and Waterloo a large banner was erected saying “Bo**ocks to Brexit”. Having seen that, I vowed never to use their services and discourage all others. So, yet more money to his rivals!
Yes, I recall that. I certainly was getting him mixed up with someone else. That said, if he wanted to say bollocks to Brexit, that’s his freedom of speech.
Yes, he did say it: Mullins ‘must have vaccine’ on talkRadio
Pimlico Plumbers is introducing a `no jab, no job´ policy that requires employees to be vaccinated against Covid
Charlie Mullins speaks from “stay at home” Dubai holiday hotel
https://youtu.be/qJhFZTiZ72s?t=653
The backpedalling is probably because his lawyers told him that such a contract would be illegal and he would be sued to penury.
Why would it Be more illegal To tell employees that they must get a vaccine Than it would be to tell them that they must not sneak a cigarette in their home bathroom once a week at midnight on a friday night or risk being fired?I
😕
MJM
There are two answers to this.
The first being that there is no difference as neither are any business of the employer. If an employer wishes to insist upon a smokefree workplace then fair enough. Their gaff, their rules, but outside of the workplace then sex and travel is the appropriate response.
The second is that insisting that people do not do something isn’t the same as forcing them to have a foreign substance inserted into their bodies without consent. That really does cross a line, hence the reaction at Nuremberg when Mengele’s activities came to light.
Sound points and well thought out! Thank you Long!