Law enforcement to collapse because of the mandatory vaccination?

The inoculation rate of the people working in law enforcement is around 70 pc currently – the employee leader of the BÉT (domestic bargaining commission) said. Pál Powell added that the lowest inoculation rate is among the colleagues working in the field.

Judit Bárdos, the chairwoman of the BRDSZ trade union, said that 10 thousand out of the 36 thousand employees working in law enforcement were not inoculated. Meanwhile, these numbers are 2 thousand and 15 thousand in the case of administration employees – Népszava reported.

30 pc of their employees of the National Directorate General for Disaster Management did not get the jab. In the case of the 7,000 firefighters, the figures are even worse. The inoculation rate is only 60 pc among them.

There are still a lot of questions about the mandatory vaccination of law enforcement employees. The government summoned the domestic bargaining commission in November. But they could not answer a lot of questions. One of the most pressing issues was whether those not regularly meeting with clients have to receive the vaccine or not.

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According to the relevant government decree, the last deadline for the employees of law enforcement bodies is 31 January. However, in the case of those, who regularly meet with clients, it is 15 December. The leaders of the different law enforcement branches had to write their suggestions on modifications by 30 November. The decision is in the hands of the interior minister, Sándor Pintér.

However, nobody knows when he will make up his mind and whether he will announce the final rules before the deadline, 31 January. 

– blikk.hu said.

That creates considerable uncertainties in the system and among the law enforcement employees. Trade unions say that there will be many people who would not accept the vaccine because of various reasons. For example, because the level of antigens is high in their blood and they have an official certification of that. There are several other questions the government did not give a straight answer to. For example, nobody knows whether employees sent on unpaid leave will receive their so-called “weapon money”, which equals their half-year salary.

One of the trade unions warned the minister.

They admitted that Pintér was right to clear that only healthy people can serve and protect the country. However, those sent on unpaid leave cannot serve, they added. Therefore, the biggest question is how the system will survive the mandatory vaccination because labour shortage has been severe for years because of the low salaries. The trade unions highlighted that if more employees are sent to unpaid leave, overtime work will not be enough to fill the gaps.

Source: Népszava, blikk.hu