{"id":30074,"date":"2021-10-08T12:39:20","date_gmt":"2021-10-08T16:39:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=30074"},"modified":"2021-10-08T12:48:47","modified_gmt":"2021-10-08T16:48:47","slug":"chamber-convenes-for-agm-answering-vaccine-questions-for-local-business-owners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/chamber-convenes-for-agm-answering-vaccine-questions-for-local-business-owners\/","title":{"rendered":"Chamber convenes for AGM, answering vaccine questions for local business owners"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you\u2019re going to require your employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 going forward, you\u2019re going to have to have \u201ca strong and solid why.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was the message delivered to members of the Aurora Chamber of Commerce last week by human resources lawyer Laura Williams as the Chamber held its first in-person event \u2013 its Annual General Meeting (AGM) \u2013 since the start of the global pandemic in March of 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot has changed for local, national and international business since COVID-19 made itself known, but the Chamber is looking forward to the months ahead with a greater degree of certainty, and further supports from the Ontario Chamber of Commerce to underscore the Shop Local movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have received a government grant through the Ontario Chamber of Commerce to support a five-month Explore Aurora, Shop Local, Support Local campaign,\u201d said Sandra Ferri, President & CEO of the Aurora Chamber of Commerce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The program, she said, will include four professionally produced videos, one of which will be for the Experience York Region website, promoting Aurora as a destination along with the eight other municipalities under York\u2019s umbrella, under the theme of \u201cIt\u2019s All Here in York Region.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three further videos will be produced for Explore Aurora, a website founded jointly by the Chamber and the Town of Aurora in response to the pandemic. These pieces will highlight \u201cwhere to shop, dine and play\u201d in Aurora.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The grant will also go to support a new online campaign which will kick off early next month with a focus on shopping local during the holidays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt has been a tough year, but an exciting one as well, and we have been creative in the ways we have approached our challenges and have looked to alternate sources of funding and supports for our local businesses,\u201d said Ms. Ferri. \u201cI look forward to another exciting year, one which will see us getting back to our in-person events like tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also excited to be back at an in-person event was returning Chamber Board President Al Wilson who said nobody was turned away from the door and everyone who registered was able to show their vaccination certificates \u2013 something which could prove to be a hallmark of the year ahead for many local businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs we emerge from this pandemic, and we will, the new normal includes government restrictions,\u201d said Wilson. \u201cThat is going to require businesses like you to check vaccination certificates like we did [tonight] and monitor who comes into your businesses. Employers are having to make decisions every day regarding employee vaccinations, rapid testing of employees, but most importantly how to keep their businesses safe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On hand to share some tips on how to do so was Ms. Williams of Williams HR Law who said there has been a lot of conflict between employers and employees as not every workplace has to institute a mandatory vaccination policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have all been sucker-punched by the impacts of the pandemic, the mental health crisis we\u2019re in, and we have only seen the tip of the iceberg,\u201d she said. \u201cThe escalations that are occurring in the workplace because of\u2026 the realities we have all had to confront and we\u2019re thinking about it increasingly as it relates to social justice, which also impacts the workplace, and now vaccinations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat requirements do organizations have? What are the obligations of employers to ensure a safe workplace, to take every precaution possible to ensure that the workplace is safe? There are certain kinds of work \u2013 they\u2019re in high-risk settings, certain environments, educational environments where, yes, there are mandatory vaccination requirements, but within your respective workplaces start to assess whether or not health and safety considerations to prevent the transmission of the virus and variants within your environment require you to require others \u2013 be it your employees, volunteers, contractors \u2013 to be vaccinated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt behoves employers to ensure they find out the level of vaccination in terms of employees that have been fully vaccinated within their workplaces because you need to address your health and safety considerations accordingly. There are some workplaces\u2026who have boasted they know they have 100 per cent vaccination within their employee base and then there are others who are challenged right now and they don\u2019t know how to institute\u2026 return to work protocols to ensure safety within the workplace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are risks in requiring existing employees to be vaccinated because a lot of employees are challenging this requirement saying, \u2018now you\u2019re unilaterally changing the terms and conditions of my employment,\u2019 so they are claiming constructive dismissal. Apart from that risk, one of the things a lot of employers need to bear in mind\u2026 and this helps to mitigate the risk, is you really have to look at the work that is being performed\u2026 Really go through the time and consideration and reflection on what is happening in your workplace, how work is being performed, how you have to perform the work before rushing off in a knee-jerk fashion and implementing rules and requirements, including those that relate to vaccinations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong>
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/em><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019re going to require your employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 going forward, you\u2019re going to have to have \u201ca strong and solid why.\u201d This was the message delivered to members of the Aurora Chamber of Commerce last week by human resources lawyer Laura Williams as the Chamber held its first in-person event […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-7P4","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-16 10:03:03","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30074\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}