Fin24 reports that the Cape Town family of a late Standard Bank employee, Chevon Surujparsad, is spending thousands of rands on lawyers to fight what it believes was workplace bullying.
In an affidavit to the CCMA, issued when she was still alive, Surujparsad noted that Standard Bank had adopted a work-from-home policy for most of its staff in May 2020. She was apparently given a desktop that needed a LAN cable to connect to WiFi, but she was expected to contact clients telephonically without any phone facilities provided by the bank. She also battled with restricted access to IT assistance and intermittent load shedding. In her affidavit, Surujparsad said she told the bank on numerous occasions that she couldn't maintain the expected output if those issues were not sorted out. Then in August that year, she received a written warning because of a delay in attending to one client query. Surujparsad lodged an appeal, disputing the grounds of the written warning. Shortly after the written warning, doctors placed her on sick leave due to severe emotional stress. When she returned from sick leave, the bank put her on temporary incapacity leave until 28 February 2021. Throughout that time, Surujparsad continued her fight against the written warning. After months of waiting for the bank's response, she took the matter to the CCMA. But, Surujparsad contracted Covid-19 and died in June 2021 before the CCMA hearing. Her family claims that workplace bullying had a severe impact on her mental wellbeing and led to her temporary incapacity. Her family also alleges that Standard Bank, as the executor of her estate, is now using that power to try and squash the CCMA case. The bank has proposed that "on good faith", it will unconditionally retract the written warning. But the bank maintains its position around the circumstances that led to the notice. So by retracting the letter, it is not admitting guilt. But Surujparsad's family does not accept this. It wants her name cleared as this was her wish before she died.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Londiwe Buthelezi at Fin24 (subscriber access only)
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