WILLEMSTAD - According to the business associations in Curaçao, employers do not have to hire people who have not been vaccinated. "Of course everyone has the right not to be vaccinated", according to the VBC, "but that does have consequences for business owners, and I have not heard from the government about that."
The Curaçao Business Association (VBC), hospitality association Chata, Casha, restaurant association CRA and DMO are fed up with the corona policy and they indicated this during a press conference yesterday.
In almost an hour and a half, the speakers expressed their dissatisfaction and anger with the government's policy that "is good for public health, but disastrous for the private sector". According to them, all kinds of measures are being taken that have major consequences for business owners, but the government then does not give the answer when they sound the alarm.
During the press conference, in addition to much criticism of the testing policy - which, according to the speakers, "completely prices Curaçao out of the market" - there was also criticism of the government's vaccination policy. According to the speakers, in that area too, 'the business owners are not taken into account at all'.
The government would only look at the interests of people who do not want to be vaccinated. “Of course everyone has the right not to be vaccinated. But that does have consequences for us, and we have not heard anything from the government about that," according to the VBC.
Lawyer Berti Braam, who was a guest at the press conference and who also gave the same message in an opinion article in the newspapers last week, is clear about this: "No one can force an employee to be vaccinated, but the employer may also provide that an unvaccinated employee is not allowed on the work floor and does not receive a salary. The government has so far not commented on this.”