Johannesburg- Controversial Polokwane City owner Johnny Mogaladi has allegedly made a death threat during a heated family meeting he convened to discuss his squabble with his niece, who took his company to Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) for unfair labor practice.
This after his niece, Pertunia Mologadi Letsobana, who works as a sales executive at Mogaladi’s company, African Building Systems, defied his instruction to start working from 6 am every day.
When their dispute could not be resolved, Mogaladi allegedly influenced Letsobana’s mother and aunt to vote in favor of disowning and isolating her from the family.
The startling allegations are contained in grievance papers that Letsobana filed at the CCMA’s Vereeniging branch, where the matter was heard on Friday last week where they agreed to work together peacefully again.
In the papers, which Sunday World has seen, Letsobana says she has been working for eight hours a day from 7.30 am to 4.30 pm, Monday to Thursday, and from 7.30 am to 3 pm on Fridays, as stipulated in her contract of employment.
She says in the papers all hell broke loose when Mogaladi unilaterally altered her conditions of employment and instructed her to start working on Saturday and Sunday, which she begrudgingly agreed to.
“The respondent is a family-run business and the soul behind the company is my uncle who is a sibling to my mother, and a father to one of the directors.
“In January this year, he instructed that I work from Sunday to Sunday.
When I will be absent on weekends, he shouts at me, calls me degrading names such as a stupid and useless person. He threatens to take away my car and instructs the [other] company director to deduct my week’s salary.
This harassment never stops and keeps on recurring from time to time,” read the papers.
She says in the papers that things worsened when Mogaladi changed her working conditions again and instructed her to start reporting to work at 6 am last month.
When she told him that she would not be able to report for duty at that time, he allegedly saw red and called her stupid and threatened to take away her company benefits or dismiss her.
She continues that when she wrote a letter and told him how depressed she was as a result of their relationship breakdown, Mogaladi informed the other directors to seize her company car, cellphone, and laptop.
She says in the papers the company later charged her with absconding from work and insubordination and ordered her to appear before a disciplinary committee on October 22.
The instruction was issued a day after she instructed her lawyers, Mahlokwane Attorneys, to write a letter of grievance to the company. She notes that she objected to this as she was not given a grievance notice.
The hearing was postponed to October 27, but she objected to this on procedural grounds.
“Following the postponement, my uncle convened a family meeting with my mother, aunt, and the other directors and senior management in the company.
They … were made to vote to isolate and disown me,” she says in the papers.
Mogaladi couldn’t be reached for comment at the time of going to print.
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