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BusinessLive reports that an Absa executive who was fired after she called management "old white men" has failed in a high court bid to prove she was unfairly dismissed.
Shirley Simmadari‚ former head of sales at Absa Corporate and Investment Bank‚ also claimed she had been racially victimised‚ but Cape Town Labour Court judge Anton Steenkamp said she had failed to prove this. Simmadari‚ from Johannesburg‚ was fired for gross misconduct. In his judgment‚ Steenkamp found she had harassed and bullied subordinates. She also made racist‚ ageist and other inappropriate comments. Simmadari claimed that Absa had treated her differently from one of her subordinates‚ a white man‚ who was "allowed to retire gracefully". But, Steenkamp said the subordinate had not been found guilty of misconduct and had been one of Simmadari’s targets. "She has not established that she was dismissed on the grounds of her race rather than for misconduct; and she has not shown that she was treated differently to [her subordinate] because of her race‚ gender or conscience," Steenkamp ruled. He ordered Simmadari to pay Absa’s costs‚ saying she had made "far-reaching allegations" against the bank without any basis for doing so.
- Read this report by Dave Chambers in full at BusinessLive
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