Ivan Israelstam | Chief Executive | Labour Law Management Consulting | mail me |
Despite South Africa’s employment equity legislation, the biases and discrimination that characterised the ‘old South Africa’ still exists in the hearts and minds of many people. Such unfair discrimination could include, but is not limited to, discrimination on arbitrary or subjective grounds such as race, gender, family responsibility, religion, age, disability, opinion, and trade union affiliation.
In the case of Oerlikon electrodes SA vs CCMA and others (2003 9 BLLR 900) the Labour Court was asked to review an award made by a CCMA commissioner relating to the dismissal of an employee for using racist language. The arbitrator had found the dismissal to be unfair partly because the employer’s disciplinary code did not provide for dismissal on a first offence of using racist language. The employee was consequently reinstated with retrospective effect.
The Labour Court found that:
- The employee had admitted to calling a repairman of a service provider a ‘Dutchman’ and had further admitted that this was a derogatory term
- The employer’s disciplinary code did require…
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Read the full article by Ivan Israelstam, Chief Executive, Labour Law Management Consulting, as well as a host of other topical management articles written by professionals, consultants and academics in the October/November 2021 edition of BusinessBrief.
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