Today's Labour News

GroundUp reports that in a scathing judgment, Labour Court Judge Edwin Tlhotlhalemaje has ruled against the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) for firing Nqobile Pearl Munthali, head of the Prasa Development Foundation, on 29 January.

At an urgent hearing on 19 February, Munthali successfully asked the court to declare that her contract with Prasa was extant, and to order Prasa to reinstate her. Munthali was one of six executives axed by Prasa after it claimed that the executives had overstayed the five-year terms of their contracts. Tlhotlhalemaje found that “there was indeed a breach of the applicant’s contract of employment”. He said Munthali was not, as claimed by Prasa chairperson Leonard Ramatlakane, suspended for misconduct and, in fact, “the allegations in that regard were withdrawn and further since her suspension had been lifted as far back as July/August 2020”. The judge commented further:  “Prasa’s conduct of publicly announcing the termination of the applicant’s contract without first informing her, and in the course of doing so, misrepresented the true facts at the time of the termination, was not only appalling, but shockingly malicious and inhumane.” Tlhotlhalemaje agreed with Munthali’s assertion that Prasa “acted in bad faith, knowing that there was no legal basis to justify its stance, and that its conduct smacked of gross abuse of power”, and that Prasa was not entitled “to act in a gung-ho manner, that grossly violated its employees’ basic fundamental rights”. In the hearing, Prasa ultimately conceded that revised recruitment policies from 2018 and 2020, which purportedly capped executive contracts at five years, did not have retrospective effect.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by James Stent at GroundUp <https://www.groundup.org.za/article/prasa-ordered-labour-court-reinstate-fired-exec/>

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