CCMA CASE UPDATE
Today’s CCMA’s case is about Mr. X – who is a manager at at an Engineering consultancy firm in South Africa. Mr. X was dismissed for sexual harassment.
Mr. X believed that his dismissal was unfair and referred his case to the CCMA.
Testifying at the CCMA
Mr X explained that on the day of the incident, he came in five minutes late into the boardroom for training and he sat down on the chair.
After about 30 minutes a female employee – Ms. Y pushed her chair backwards from the table and Mr. Y saw that she had a mini skirt on. He felt that this constituted inappropriate dressing by exposing her legs.
Mr. Y proceeded to tapped her once on her thigh, just above the knee in order to give her a sign to push her chair back in.
Ms. Y testified:
In her testimony, Ms. Y stated that when the incident occurred, she was already seated in the boardroom.
Mr. X came in and sat down – and proceeded to run his hand along her thigh.
It was embarrassing and shocking for her. She looked around to see if others had seen it.
After the incident, she spoke to her family and decided to report the incident to Human Resources.
After returning to his office, Mr. X cried because he felt ashamed of himself, since he is a Pastor. He just wanted peace.
CCMA Commissioners ruling:
The commissioner explained that Mr. X had run his hand along Ms. Y thigh without her consent.
The Commissioner went on to explain: “A lady’s thigh is generally accepted to be out of bounds to any man other than her husband or partner.”
And “it is concerning that Mr. X does not see any difference between tapping a lady on her shoulder and tapping her above the knee”.
A CCMA decision ruled that his inappropriate conduct constituted sexual harassment.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
- Harassment (in any form) has no place in our modern democracy.
- If a person commits harassment at work, they will face the might of the law.
- The touch of another person requires his or her consent regardless of whether it is on their thigh or not.
