TimesLIVE reports that a Woolworths human resources officer lost her job for the sake of a R35.51 discount on a pack of beef.  

Fundiswa Mlotha was fired from one of the retailer’s Cape Town branches and three years later she has just lost her latest attempt to get her job back.  After losing her case at the CCMA, Mlotha appealed to the Cape Town Labour Court.  But Judge Edwin Tlhotlhalemaje said last week she had clearly engineered the discount for herself, knowing she was breaching company rules.  The court was told that between 8am and 9am on 29 July 2016, Mlotha put a pack of beef priced at R115.51 into a cooler.  Shortly after 2pm, when it was Woolworths’ practice to reduce the prices of items approaching their sell-by date, CCTV footage showed her retrieving the pack, asking a shelf-filler to place a “30% off” sticker on it and putting it into her shopping basket.  Food department manager Jason Scott said she paid only R80 for the beef.  While Mlotha said she had reserved it for a customer who failed to pitch, she was unable to provide evidence for her claim.  What she had done was regarded as a “breach of the honesty code of practice to be met with instant dismissal”, said Scott.  Dismissing Mlotha’s claim of unfair dismissal, Tlhotlhalemaje said she “knowingly” breached the company’s rules and policies related to “honesty and integrity”.

• Read the original of the above report by Nabeelah Osman and Khanyisa Tyelela at TimesLIVE

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