The Citizen reports that a mineworker fired for allegedly arriving at work drunk might get his job back after the Labour Court (LC) deemed his breathalyser results as false and unreliable.
The case was brought by Samancor Chrome seeking to have an arbitration award in the employee’s favour reviewed and set aside. The LC heard how the employee was tested on arrival at work and the results came back as positive for alcohol. The worker denied that he had consumed alcohol and was tested again with a different device. The second test came out positive again. The employee immediately contacted his medical doctor, who arrived and drew a blood sample from him for testing at a laboratory. The laboratory test result found no traces of alcohol in the employee’s blood and he launched a case to get his job back. LC Judge André van Niekerk upheld the arbitrator’s original decision in his judgment this week. He noted that evidence showing that breathalyser tests were prone to give “false positive results” was corroborated in court. The arbitrator had rightly been adamant that the employee’s disciplinary hearing ought to have taken the more accurate and reliable laboratory outcome into consideration, said Van Niekerk. The company failed to prove misconduct by the dismissed employee, he added. Reacting to the judgement, labour law expert Andrew Levy said breathalysers were a common and well-established practice in workplaces and in labour law. He opined that the judge’s take on breathalysers would not make employers let go of the tests completely. It was just one judgment and there were many cases that upheld breathalysers, he observed. In Levy’s view, the main issue should have been whether the company acted reasonably when dismissing the worker.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Getrude Makhafola at The Citizen (subscriber access only)
- Read too, Workers may not be fired solely on breathalyser test, court rules, at BusinessLive
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page