Amazon offers payments to staff to get the jab as Australia tackles its 70% vaccination target

As Australia gears up to chase a country-wide vaccination target of 70% of the population, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison stating that lockdowns could be a “thing of the past” as soon as next year, business leaders around the country are finding ways to incentivise their workers to get onboard.

Amazon Australia, for example, is offering a special ‘vaccination benefit’ payment of $140 for eligible fulfillment and delivery station workers who get fully vaccinated on the advice of a health practitioner.

The business is also offering paid or unpaid leave for workers to attend vaccination appointments, and performs onsite testing each day at its Moorebank, Regents Park and Frenchs Forest locations, with testing to begin in its Melbourne sites this month.

“Nothing is more important than the health and safety of our people, and we’ve invested heavily to ensure this since the pandemic began,” said Amazon director of workplace health and safety APAC Jane Bourke.

“Above all, the aim is to provide reassurance for our team, and providing easy access to regular testing for workers onsite helps with early identification and isolation of people who are asymptomatic and might be unknowingly transmitting the virus.”

Additionally, Woolworths’ chief executive Brad Banducci has advocated for all of the supermarket group’s workers to be vaccinated as soon as is possible, and said the group is committed to support vaccination efforts across the country.

As such, Woolies has established pop-up vaccination clinics in key distribution centres in South West Sydney with the help of the federal government, and has secured early access to vaccines for its store teams in the five most affected local government areas hit by the current COVID outbreak in Sydney.

“These are important steps in helping protect our team so they can continue to provide food for all Australians,” Banducci said.

This article was first published by Inside Retail.