SA
“Mandatory is not the same as a condition of employment”
No it’s not the same, but it’s not very different either.
Having an income & the means to support yourself is pretty “mandatory” in the real world, outside of semantic hair splitting. And, as I understand it, having any kind of job at the moment is a pretty fortunate situation to be in.
So whilst not mandatory in the strictest sense of the word, it is punitively coercive and I don’t see much of a practical distinction between the two.
Furthermore, we’d be fools to imagine that this doesn’t also lower the bar & “set the stage” for all the subsequent measures that will invariably follow, the ‘condition’ attached to going into a shop, a sporting event, a bus or train, getting an education, accessing hospital treatment – basically being allowed to partake in “Life”.
“Nobody is forcing someone to be a frontline healthcare worker….If you are unwilling to accept the concept…..then maybe you are not suited to do the job.”
No, nobody forced them to care for the elderly & infirm during what was presented as an unprecedented global health catastrophe, when they were having supposedly dangerously contagious folk dumped on them by a minority clique of politicians & institutional careerists of dubious qualifications.
But they did it, under torrid conditions and accepting the huge risks it apparently posed to them & their families.
But now, if they don’t “toe the line” and kowtow to the dictates of some horrendously discredited individuals & their flag waving cohorts, then “fk ’em!”
Do we clap and pat them on the back as they shuffle off to the dole queue? or simply spit in their eye and call them biological terrorists from the cosseted comfort of our disingenuous & barely informed concern for the community’s health & well being?