The chips are down for snack-making company Simba Chips after an employee dragged it to the Labour Court demanding compensation of R20-million for mental abuse and racial discrimination.
The demand is contained in court documents filed in the Labour Court in Braamfontein, Johannesburg.
Katleho Sethabela, the compliance and ethics manager for Simba: Sub-Saharan Africa, prays to the court to order the company to pay her R20-million after allegations of harassment, racism and unfair discrimination in the workplace.
Sethabela claims the harassment and unfair discrimination that plunged her into mental distress culminated in her seniors within the organisation sabotaging her efforts to build a vibrant culture of compliance and ethical behaviour.
According to the papers, Sethabela believes she was discriminated against, stating that race and gender were central to the discrimination simply because she is a black woman in a company dominated by white employees at management level.
Sethabela is also arguing in court papers that she believes the company also stifled her professional growth by snubbing and overlooking her for promotion.
Instead, she argues, the company promoted white employees despite her achievements and the workload that kept piling up.
She believes her problems started when she defended a fellow black female employee who was wrongly forced to pay back to the company an amount of R70 000 as a relocation bonus, accommodation, travel and moving expenses, fully entitled to the employee.
“Sethabela conducted an investigation, which concluded that the actions taken against that employee were not in line with applicable policies, and that the employee should stop paying that money and must be reimbursed,” she stated in the court papers.
“This decision was viewed very negatively by the company. It was seen to be challenging decisions made by HR [human resources] and Sethabela was instructed to cancel her report, transfer the matter to the law department, and again subjected to major retaliation.”
She has submitted to the court this “illogical” decision by the company was reversed by its new leader two years later, ordering that her recommendations be implemented in full.
According to Sethabela, because of the time that lapsed from the initial rejection of her report, she had already suffered harassment and racial discrimination from the human resources boss, Annelize van der Wall.
Sethabela said she was once again a victim of ill-treatment when she attempted to fight for another employee – Kebuileng Loselo – a black female who was being subjected to a criminal matter when her white colleagues got away scot-free for the same offence.
According to Sethabela, there were a myriad of cases indicative of racist behaviour by the company towards black employees.
She cited an incident where two black staff members from Nigeria were fired for allegedly being untruthful during the company’s so-called “Speak Up” investigation, while white people who were fingered for the same infraction kept their jobs.
“Sethabela expressed her view that given the employees who escaped disciplinary hearings and thus termination were Caucasian, and that the employees in Nigeria who got terminated were black, this raises issues of different treatment on the
basis of race,” read the papers.
It was for these reasons that Sethabela submitted she had been subjected to mental suffering and had her rights as an employee breached by the food processing company – this in contravention of the parent company’s human rights policy.
Accordingly, she wants the court to order the company to pay her salary and benefits up to the retirement age of 65, and for “special damages” for being denied the dignity of a workplace that is free from harassment, unfair discrimination and averse to infringing on her constitutional rights.
“Damages to the applicant are estimated at R20-million for indirect pain, mental and physical suffering and injury to personal dignity, which the applicant is experiencing because of harassment and unfair discrimination by Simba,” she stated in the papers.
