A Limpopo school teacher has failed in his four-year battle to have his two-month suspension without pay reviewed. The matter was dismissed by the Labour Court.
Vonani Mukhari, a teacher at Nkuzana Primary School in Khomanani, Vhembe West district, was found guilty by the school’s internal disciplinary committee. He faced charges of insubordination, brought against him in June 2018.
Mukhari was found guilty of charges including disrespecting the principal and head of department. This after he refused instructions to attend teacher-parent meetings. The meetings were scheduled on the same day as the mid-year examination days. According to the judgment, though the meetings were on the same day as the exams, the time did not conflict with the exams.
Conflict over meetings
Mukhari maintained that the instructions to attend the parent-teacher meeting at the same time as the time scheduled for exams was unlawful. This was because the exam timetable was a provincial instruction, which could not be trumped by the school’s principal.
Formal charges were laid against Mukhari by the Limpopo education department’s Hlanganani Central Circuit office. He was found guilty of charges related to insubordination in August 2020. This was following a disciplinary hearing held in March 2020.
The teacher was found guilty of three out of the four charges he faced. He was handed a final written warning and a two-month suspension without pay.
Appealed the findings
Mukhari appealed the findings and sanction internally, but he was unsuccessful.
He approached the Education Labour Relations Council (ELRC) to challenge the findings of the disciplinary process.
“On 1 March 2021, the applicant referred an unfair labour practice dispute under section 186 (2)(c) of the LRA [Labour Relations Act] to the ELRC. After the dispute remained unresolved at conciliation the applicant applied for arbitration. This commenced on 13 August 2021 and was concluded on 21 September 2021.
“The arbitrator found that the outcome and sanction was fair, and that no unfair labour practice was committed. [Mukhari] then brought the review application that is now before me,” said acting labour court judge Luit van Haas. He wrote in the background to his judgment issued on August 2.
Acting judge AJ De Haan said in his findings that the sanction imposed on Mukhari was in his view lenient.
“He was not dismissed. In my view, that was a lenient sanction. And I can find no grounds in the papers or in law for interfering with it. I, therefore, cannot fault the arbitrator on this score,” he said.
Judge rules against teacher
“In my assessment, although the arbitrator made an error in his assessment of the facts before him, the result is not one that falls outside the band of decisions to which a decision-maker, acting reasonably, could come on a conspectus of the evidence before him.
“In the result, the review application must fail,” he said in his judgment.
He said because Mukhari was still employed by the Limpopo education department, he will not impose a cost order.
“Having considered that there is an ongoing employment relationship between the applicant and the third respondent … I am of the view that a cost order is not merited,” he said.
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