“Harassment must not come cheap” – delegates told during Department of Employment and Labour and Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration EE workshop
Employers need to take sterner action to stem the tide of harassment in the workplaces said Department of Employment and Labour Deputy Director for Employment Equity (EE) Registry, Lucia Rayner in Mbombela today.
Rayner said: “harassment must not be cheap, culprits must be held accountable and disciplined”. She said employers need to have harassment policy in place to specify the range of disciplinary sanctions, that must be proportionate to the seriousness of the harassment in question.
She said sanctions must include but not limited to: warnings to perpetrator, dismissal, transfer of perpetrator and encouraging the complainant to lay criminal charge or institute civil proceedings against the alleged perpetrator.
Rayner was speaking during the joint Department of Employment and Labour, and the Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) 2022 Employment Equity workshop. The workshop is part of a national series of roadshows that will be held throughout the country. The workshops started in Kimberley and are also held in Mahikeng and Rustenburg this week and will continue until mid-September.
The workshops are held under the theme: “Real transformation makes business sense”. Rayner was speaking to dissect the Code of Good Practice on the prevention and elimination of harassment in the workplace that was published on 18 March 2022. The Code applies to all employers and employees, as provided for in the Employment Equity Act.
The objective of the workshops is:
Publicising the Gazetted Code of Good Practice on elimination of and prevention harassment in the workplace;
- 2021-2022 EE Annual Report (22nd EE Annual Report);
- The 2022 EE Online reporting; and
- CCMA: Case law of all types of harassment.
According to the Code the EE Act states that harassment of an employee is a form of unfair discrimination and is prohibited on any one, or a combination of grounds of unfair discrimination listed in the legislation.
This Code of Good Practice is intended to address the prevention, elimination and management of all forms of harassment that pervade the workplace. The Code defines harassment to include the use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against another person or against a group or community, which either results in, or has a high likelihood of resulting in social injustice, economic harm, injury, death, physical and psychological harm, mal-development or deprivation.
The CCMA has jurisdiction to conciliate all workplace-related harassment disputes.
In the period 1 April 2019 to 31 March 2022 - the CCMA in terms of EE Act had referrals in terms of sex, sexual orientation, gender and sexual harassment. In 2019/2020 the CCMA dealt with a total of 1834 disputes, in 2020/21 the cases dropped to 1157 and in 2021/2022 there were 1260 disputes.
CCMA Regional Senior Commissioner, Letsema Mokoena said the dip in the number of disputes in the 2020/21 may in the main be the result of Covid-19 pandemic and the work from home phenomenon. Mokoena said with the introduction of the Code of Good Practice on the prevention and elimination of harassment in the workplace and people going back to workplaces he expects the number of disputes to pick up.
Mokoena observed that there was a low number of sexual harassment referrals or low number of unresolved workplace incidents or low level of sexual harassment in the workplace.
“Some people end up in psychiatric wards because they are afraid to report,” Mokoena said.
He said some of the reasons that make complainants to remain silent include the fear to lose jobs, making the harasser angry, not being believed, being seen as trouble makers, being blamed or accused of “asking for it”, getting the harasser into trouble.
He said he hoped the Code would help to develop legislation to deal with harassment.
The workshops are aimed at Employers or Heads of organisations, Academics, Assigned Senior Managers, Consultative forum members, Human Resource Practitioners, Trade Unions representatives and employees.
The rest of the Roadshows are lined up as follows:
Limpopo
- Thohoyandou (23 August 2022) – (venue to be confirmed)
- Polokwane (24 August 2022) – Park Inn Hotel, Dorp Street
Free State
- Welkom (23 August 2022) – (venue to be confirmed)
- Bloemfontein (24 August 2022) – Summerwood Estate & Country, 8 Mimosa Park, Mimosa Park Small
Mpumalanga
- Witbank (Emalahleni) – (29 August 2022) – (venue to be confirmed)
KwaZulu-Natal
- Richards Bay (30 August 2022) – Imvubu Lodge, Krewelkring &, Hibberd Drive, Meer En See
- Pietermaritzburg (31 August 2022) – (venue to be confirmed)
- Durban (01 September 2022) – Olive Convention Centre, 81 Somtseu Road, North Beach
Eastern Cape
- Gqeberha (30 August 2022) – (venue to be confirmed)
- East London (31 August 2022) – (venue to be confirmed)
Western Cape
- George (06 September 2022) – (venue to be confirmed)
- Cape Town (07 September 2022) – (venue to be confirmed)
Gauteng
- Pretoria (13 September 2022) – RH Hotel, Corner Steve Biko Road and, Trevenna Street, Sunnyside
- Johannesburg (14 September 2022) – (venue to be confirmed)
- Vaal (15 September 2022) – (venue to be confirmed)
The national workshops will be held from 10:00 to 13:00 and members of the media are invited.
More information on EE is obtainable from the Department website www.labour.gov.za including updates on the schedule for venues.
Meanwhile, the EE annual manual and online reporting season opens on 01 September 2022. The manual reporting deadline is 01 October 2022, and the online reporting submission closing date is 15 January 2023.
Teboho Thejane
Departmental Spokesperson
082 697 0694
Teboho.Thejane@labour.gov.za
