Woman SACKED from her job for failing to get the Covid vaccine in time was unfairly dismissed

On Aug 18, 2022

A woman successfully sued her former employer for nearly $3,500 after being unfairly dismissed while waiting for the Novavax vaccine to become available.

Robyn Pskiet from Adelaide worked at food distributor Nocelle Foods for more than 16 years until she was sacked in January after refusing to get the jab.

She had told her manager she was waiting for the Novavax inoculation. At the time only AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines were available.

Despite that, Ms Pskiet was terminated on January 12 because she hadn’t provided a medical exemption for being unvaccinated.

An Adelaide woman successfully sued her former employer for nearly $3,500 after being unfairly dismissed while waiting for the Novavax vaccine to become available

Ms Pskiet was Nocelle Foods’ quality assurance manager, working at a warehouse in Pookraka for nearly two decades.

She was sacked just eight days before the Therapeutic Goods Administration provisionally approved the use of the Novavax jab in Australia, with doses given out a month later.

The Adelaide woman took her case to the Fair Work Commission, arguing the food distributor’s vaccination policy was not ‘reasonable or lawful’, given that the company never allowed the worker to work from home while she waited for access to her choice of vaccine.

The board’s commissioner Peter Hampton agreed her dismissal was unfair, largely because of the timing and manner in which the policy was applied to Ms Pskiet.

His findings, which were released in July, found the policy itself was lawful and reasonable `but found the Adelaide woman couldn’t have worked from home given her position as quality assurance.

Ms Pskiet was sacked just eight days before the Therapuetic Goods Administration provisionally approved the use of the Novavax jab in Australia

Ms Pskiet said she wasn’t ‘anti-vax’ but instead ‘pro-choice’ and wished to wait for the Novavax jab.

‘Although some elements of her work could be performed from home, this was not a viable or productive medium or longer-term option,’ Mr Hampton said in his report.

He said the employee should have been given ‘proper consideration’ and granted extended leave because of her position.

‘I also accept that it would not have been reasonable for Ms Pskiet to have been granted extended indefinite leave, including because of the nature of her position,’ Mr Hampton said.

‘However, the prospect of the Novavax vaccine was real at the point of the dismissal and the fact of dismissing the applicant had the effect of completely removing Ms Pskiet as a resource for the business.

‘The timing and related application of the policy to Ms Pskiet means that I cannot be satisfied that, at the point of termination, a valid reason existed.’

Ms Pskiet was awarded $3,462 plus superannuation in compensation as a result of the judgement.

THE NOVAVAX VACCINE

How does the vaccine work?

The Novavax vaccine works like other vaccines by teaching the immune system to make antibodies to the coronavirus spike protein.

Researchers inserted a modified gene into a virus, called a baculovirus, and allowed it to infect insect cells.

Spike proteins from these cells were then assembled into nanoparticles which, while they look like coronavirus, cannot replicate or cause Covid. These nanoparticles are then injected into the body via the vaccine where the immune system mounts an antibody response.

If the body encounters coronavirus in the future, the body is primed to fend it off. The vaccine is given as two doses.

Are there advantages of the Novavax vaccine?

Yes. While the jabs from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna need to be kept at ultra-low temperatures, the Novavax jab is stable for up to three months in a normal fridge.

It was also shown to cause less side effects than other Covid jabs.

It also uses a more established technology that vaccine sceptics might trust.

How effective is the vaccine?

Phase three trials by Maryland-based Novavax of more than 15,000 people in the UK found the jab had an efficacy rate of 96.4 against mild, moderate and severe disease caused by the original coronavirus strain.

Meanwhile, a trial of the vaccine on 30,000 people in the US and Mexico found it gave 100 per cent protection against moderate and severe disease.

Unlike Pfizer and Moderna’s shots, the Novavax jab uses the same protein-based technology as flu vaccines, which expose the immune system to spike proteins from the virus.

Pfizer and Moderna’s jab relies on mRNA — the building blocks for protein — while Johnson and Johnson’s shot involves an adenovirus carrying DNA into a cell to get it to manufacture parts of the virus and trigger an immune response.

Phase three trials of more than 15,000 people in the UK found the jab had an efficacy rate of 96.4 against mild, moderate and severe disease caused by the original coronavirus strain.