A Stellenbosch Municipality employee has claimed victory over her employer after successfully proving unfair labour practice following a failure to adjust her salary before the controversial TASK salary upgrading
process.
Stellenbosch traffic officer Lizelle Moses, represented by the Municipal and Allied Trade Union of SA, had brought the matter for arbitration before the bargaining council in May.
She had argued that while the new TASK job evaluation system was to be implemented by July 1, 2014, the municipality had committed an unfair labour
practice by failing to upgrade her salary, and sought an order for the
necessary reparations.
In the arbitration award seen by the Cape Times, the commissioner noted that an instruction for Moses’s advancement had been submitted but never happened.
“A week prior to her application for upgrade, her colleague, a Mr R Mzili, applied for upgrade on June 6, 2014. In terms of the application, his advancement was recommended by the manager for traffic service, Mr J Waldus, and it was approved by the director for community and protection,
Mr P Oliver.”
“The application for promotion was dated June 13, 2014. The
manager recommended she be advanced and this was approved by the director. Mr Mzili was upgraded, she (Moses) was not.
"She submits that TASK was not applicable, otherwise he would not have been upgraded. Mr Mzili’s application was approved on June 9, 2014 and Moses’s on June 17, 2014,” according to the award.
Moses had argued there was a decision by the council on June 24, 2014 to implement TASK by July 1, 2014. It was not yet decided that TASK would be implemented when she applied and the director approved her upgrade.
She submitted that the TASK outcomes were only available on February 29, 2016 and should have been upgraded from July 2014.
A review into the implementation and application of the TASK process had highlighted alleged wasteful and irregular expenditure of millions of rand.
This emerged in a forensic report in April 2017 prepared for the municipality. The report found the process had lacked an audit trail and the then human resource manager, in a memorandum prepared for the council, suggested the municipality pay employees a year’s backpay, omitting legislation
suggesting it should only cover six months.
Anneleen de Beer had testified, for the municipality, that the
recommendation to upgrade Moses’s salary by July 1, 2014 was not possible as the old system had been replaced. Under cross-examination, De Beer could not confirm if the TASK results were available and said she found it difficult to think the council could make a decision without the outcome.
The commissioner found the employer had acted inconsistently, as both Moses and Mzili had complied with the requirements to be upgraded. “No evidence was placed before me why the decision was taken to upgrade Mr Mzili on June 1, 2014 but upgrade the applicant on July 1, 2014, when both parties applied during June 2014.
“In the absence of evidence in this regard, the respondent failed to provide a reasonable explanation,” the judgment read.
The commissioner ruled that Moses had been subjected to unfair labour practices, and ordered the Stellenbosch Municipality to pay her R100 000 by no later than August1. It was also ordered to upgrade Moses to the correct salary grade.
Stellenbosch Municipality spokesperson Stuart Grobbelaar said the bargaining council ruling and forensic report were two separate, unrelated matters and he could not discuss the details of a labour dispute of a staff member.
“This matter relates to one official’s labour dispute in terms of an automatic promotion policy that is no longer in operation. The municipality has requested clarity from the commissioner on the award made before we decide whether to take the matter on review or not,” he said
Grobbelaar said the municipality was not aware of any other employee who had declared a
similar dispute and that each
dispute declared was treated on its own particular merits.