A 23-year-old Cape Town secretary who was fired when she spurned her boss who kissed her on the neck, was awarded two years' salary and R10 000 in damages by the labour court, even though she had worked at the company for only three days.
The case, Christian vs Colliers Properties, is just one of a number of recent judgments against companies which have landed up paying heavily for
sexual harassment in the workplace.
South African companies have now been urged to take note of these judgments, especially in view of the proposed new National Economic Development and Labour Council's code of good practice on the handling of sexual harassment cases which is due to be implemented soon.
Continues Below ↓
Rochelle le Roux, a senior law lecturer at the University of Cape Town, who recently co-wrote a book called Sexual Harassment in the Workplace: Law, Policies and Processes, said the code redefined sexual harassment and refined procedures for managing claims.
"It also incorporates more subjective elements. The test now is not whether the reasonable person would see the behaviour as sexual harassment, but what the individual felt and the impact on the victim."
A high-profile case was that of Grobler vs Naspers when a former production secretary at Nasionale Tydskrifte, Sonja Grobler, sued Media24 and Gasant Samuels in the Cape High Court for psychiatric trauma suffered through sexual harassment by Samuels.
The court heard that Samuels tried to kiss Grobler, made intimate comments and suggestions to her and followed her to the toilet. He also allegedly attempted to force her at gunpoint to have sex with him, asked her to marry him, fondled and kissed her, and pushed his finger into her mouth.
Grobler's damages were nearly R800 000 which her employer had to pay.
The case went to the Supreme Court of Appeal, which found that Nasionale Tydskrifte had negligently breached the legal duty it owed Grobler, to take reasonable steps to prevent her from being sexually harassed in her working environment.
In the Christian vs Colliers Properties case, Amarall Christian, 23, was employed as a secretary at R2 000 a month.
In the judgment, acting judge André Oosthuizen found that a manager, a Mr Collier, suggested Christian accompany him for supper and drinks, which she said she would do if her boyfriend was also invited.
He asked what she would do if he asked her to sit on his lap, to which she replied that she did not need to sit on his lap as there were chairs on which to sit. He then kissed her on the neck. She pushed him away and left the office, but Collier later asked her to indicate to him whether she was "out or in".
When Christian told Collier she was not "in", he gave her an envelope containing two days' pay and dismissed her.
Oosthuizen found she had been unfairly dismissed and said he could think of no reason why she should not be awarded the full 24 months' compensation for which the Labour Relations Act provided.
Le Roux said the case sent a strong signal to employers that sexual harassment should be dealt with very carefully.
"The new code will also help address allegations of sexual harassment and get the trivial ones out of the way so the serious ones can be dealt with."
She said traditionally victims had often been too afraid to raise the alarm for fear of losing their jobs. The term "sexual harassment" was very recent and coined as a legal term only in the 1970s in America, even though it was a very old practice in the workplace.
Le Roux added that when they started researching the book they only had about 10 cases.
"But we soon found lots more and by the time we went to print last month we had 61."
She said no exact figures were available on the extent of sexual harassment.
"But I believe it is far more prevalent than we think."
Le Roux said sexual harassment often involved power play, with a person in a senior position harassing a junior, but it would also happen with people on the same level.
She said sexual harassment cases could be very damaging for companies and often reflected badly on them.
- This article was originally published on page 5 of Cape Argus on July 30, 2005
|
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Digg
Delicious
Newsvine
Facebook
muti
Twitter
