A childcare worker is calling the ' mandatory vaccination policy too heavy-handed, while the society says it's being fair by applying a provincial health order to all parts of its organization.
Thomas Aukstakalnis, a senior educator with the society, said the association's unvaccinated workers were placed on unpaid leave in December.
Speaking on Jan. 13, Aukstakalnis said he worked as part of the out-of-school childcare program at Mamquam Elementary. He told The Chief that his job was to provide before-and-after-school care from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. for ages five to 12.
He said he is unvaccinated and does not have a medical exemption.
Aukstakalnis said: "This position of putting unvaccinated workers, some of which have families; some of which have kids; some of which are full-time students and paying for university; right before Christmas with no income; put them in a very precarious and unstable position…seems to go against everything that the agency seems to stand for."
He said he didn't understand why the agency put in a universal mandatory vaccination policy when the province has not imposed any orders to vaccinate workers in the childcare sector.
The loss of unvaccinated childcare workers also contributes to the short staffing of a service, which is already very scarce in Squamish.
Furthermore, the Sea to Sky School District, which operates the school he worked in, avoided forcing all its workers to become vaccinated.
"The messaging from the school board was that staff don't have to be vaccinated," said Aukstakalnis. "The message from the government — the BCCDC themselves — was that childcare workers do not need to be vaccinated. They recommend it, but they don't require it."
He said that if the government were to order vaccinations for childcare workers, he would understand why the society would follow suit, but this hasn't happened.
Sea to Sky Community Services spokesperson Kim Konnert said the organization will not comment on exactly how many employees were put on leave, citing privacy issues.
“That said, it was a relatively small percentage of our overall staff and society operations have not been significantly impacted,” Konnert wrote to The Chief.
The executive director of Sea to Sky Community Services said the organization is following guidelines and recommendations from the provincial health officer to ensure the health and safety of its staff and clients.
"Last fall, the Nov. 18 [provincial health officer] order required a portion of SSCS employees to be vaccinated," wrote Jaye Russell in an email to The Chief. "As an organization, we take an equitable and consistent approach to vaccine policies, ensuring the ongoing safety of staff and vulnerable clients given our work environments. Many of our staff work in different settings in [the] community that may or may not follow similar health and safety measures; ultimately, every organization will do what is best for them."
She said the provincial vaccination mandate targeted the society's staff who were working in programs funded by.
Generally, these services provide help to people with disabilities.
"Like many multi-service organizations, our approach has been to trigger an agency-wide policy if a [provincial health officer] order came down that required a single group of staff to be vaccinated," Russell wrote. "We did this to ensure consistency, equity and safety given the close proximity of our work environments."
Aukstakalnis said that society’s statements about consistency, equity and safety did not line up with his experience.
“This vaccine mandate was inconsistent with the conversations I was having internally with the agency in regards to a potential mandate. This policy is not equitable as it tracked, targeted and threatened employees based on their personal health decisions and this policy is definitely not safe, as employees have been left without income or access to financial support,” he told The Chief.
“Living in 麻豆社国产and suddenly being unemployed during a freak cold snap in the middle of winter is not a safe situation to be in, and it is extremely disappointing and sad to see a community agency choose that reality for some of their employees. This policy, the way it has been implemented, and the response to staff concerns from the board at SSCS has highlighted the vast disconnect between the board of directors and their front-line workers.”
