Duke: PM 'grooming' Trinidad and Tobago for compulsory vaccination

PUBLIC Services Association (PSA) president Watson Duke claimed the Prime Minister is "grooming" the population for mandatory covid19 vaccination.

He made his claim in a television interview on Friday.

In a TV interview on Thursday, Dr Rowley said, “As long as the circumstances can be managed with a voluntary programme, then I see the Government allowing a voluntary programme to proceed.

"But if the situation changes and another kind of decision is required, then that is what governments are for."

Duke said, "The Prime Minister has his own agenda. He is a skilled groomer. He's groomed things like these foolish golf course. He's grooming the nation. Preparing them for mandatory vaccination."

He described this as an element of the "vaccinate to operate" strategy being advanced by Government to ensure that workers in various sectors of the economy are fully vaccinated against covid19.

"These things are wrong and must be called out as wrong."

He criticised anyone who was pushing for mandatory vaccination.

"All of them are part of a gang, to make society feel that they are vulnerable and they have no options to resist."

While accepting that all governments have the right to protect their citizens against public health risks, Duke said, "No government in the world would hold down anybody and push vaccines into their body. They cannot do that."

His interests, he said, were the preservation of human health and protection of workers' rights.

"I am not an anti-vaxxer. I'm not against vaccines, nor am I for vaccines."

Duke said covid19 vaccination cannot be mandatory in Trinidad and Tobago, unless all of the covid19 vaccines currently being administered to the population were licensed. He said that has not happened and licensing any vaccine is a long and rigorous process.

Duke said that time is not now because all covid19 vaccines in use were approved for emergency use only by the World Health Organization (WHO). He warned that no employer could implement a mandatory covid19 vaccination policy in the workplace.

"They are acting on vaps and bad advice."

Some attorneys and industrial relations consultants, he claimed, were wrongly advising employers that covid19 is an occupational disease and should be treated as such.

"Covid19 is not an occupational disease. An occupational disease is a disease that you can contract in the workplace."

Duke listed wrongful dismissal, unfair dismissal, constructive dismissal and discrimination based on certain characteristics protected by the Equal Opportunity Commission (EOC) as some of the charges which could be brought against any employer who temporarily lays off staff who are unvaccinated.

“I want to make this point: the world right now is being used for clinical trials. That’s why you cannot force anyone to take the vaccine. When you are signing the document, you are really signing up for clinical trials.”

He promised the PSA would represent any worker in Trinidad and Tobago who was not represented by a trade union and was being forced to vaccinate by their employer.