A former employee of a cleaning company has seen his legal attempt to secure an allegedly underpaid staff bonus dismissed by the Labour Court in Cape Town this week. 

The employee turned to the court to have a conciliation and mediation award overturned, but Acting Judge of the Labour Court, Graham Leslie, found the award in favour of the employer to be fair.

According to the employee, who took his matter to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA), after he was promoted to the role of a supervisor from team leader, his incentive had not been paid for a period of about 10 months. 

According to court documents, the employee was a team leader for a company that provides cleaning services to various clients. In his role as team leader, he received a bonus of R250 on a monthly basis. However, after being promoted to a supervisor role in March 2022, he was entitled to a supervisor bonus of R2,500 per month.

He received his new bonus amount for part of March 2022, the whole of April 2022, and part of May 2022.

However, from June 2022 until the termination of his employment in February 2023, the applicant did not receive the supervisor’s bonus. He was paid the team leader’s bonus.

The applicant claimed that he was entitled to the supervisor bonus for the balance of May 2022 until February 2023. The amount claimed was R19,125. 

The CCMA heard that the employee had been unhappy with the money he was being paid in the supervisor role. 

Arbitration proceedings noted that in May 2022, the employee had attended his employer’s head office and had stepped down from his supervisor role.

From then onwards, he worked as a team leader again, allegedly having signed payslips that reflected that he was a supervisor.

During CCMA hearings, the employee’s colleague, in a supervisor role, gave evidence that the applicant’s payslips had a discrepancy as it continued to reflect that the applicant was a supervisor but submitted that it was a “technical error”.

The employee, during hearings, submitted that he had not resigned from his supervisor role and suggested that he had not complained about being short-paid during his employment, as he feared victimisation.

Acting Judge Leslie said that it weighed heavily with the commissioner that the employee must have been aware that he was no longer receiving the supervisor’s bonus from May 2022 until February 2023 (a period of eight months) and during this time, failed to raise any complaint about this with his employer.

The complaint regarding the underpayment was only raised with the CCMA four months after his employment terminated.

“In my view, the award is eminently reasonable and does not warrant interference on review. The commissioner weighed up the competing versions and found that the third respondent’s (employer) version was more credible and probable than that of the applicant,” said Acting Judge Leslie. 

chevon.booysen@inl.co.za

Source link