Labour Court upholds dismissal of municipal manager’s senior employee over false assault claim
· Citizen
The Labour Court in Cape Town dismissed a review application last week, leaving the firing of senior superintendent Morena Douse in place.
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The South African Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) had challenged the arbitration award that found his dismissal fair.
“The application must accordingly be dismissed,” Judge R Lagrange ruled.
What happened at the municipal manager’s office
Douse joined Oudtshoorn Local Municipality in 2005 and earned R41 563,71 a month.
The court heard that after a restructuring, he was told to take up a post at Bergoord, but he never reported there.
On 3 May 2023, Municipal Manager W Hendricks reportedly barred him from a departmental meeting and ordered him back to his workstation.
According to the court records, after the meeting ended, Douse went into the Municipal Manager’s office.
An altercation followed in the office foyer, after which Hendricks reiterated that Douse return to his desk.
“Douse asserted that Hendricks pushed him and laid hands on him. Douse also made statements referring to a former municipal manager, one Mr R Lottering (‘Lottering’),” the court heard.
After the incident, Douse, along with two other unnamed colleagues, reported Hendricks to the executive mayor. Part of their grievances were that Hendricks had been “rude, threatening, and intimidating manner and had committed an assault on Douse”.
They asked for Hendricks to be fired. However, the municipality fired him instead on 29 December 2023 for dishonesty, intimidation, and gross insubordination.
Why the court backed the arbitrator
The arbitrator found Hendricks had, at most, touched Douse’s shoulder while showing him out.
The court agreed this finding was reasonable.
“Not a single witness supported the version that a push occurred,” Lagrange noted.
The judge also upheld the finding that Douse’s remarks were a threat.
“An arbitrator is entitled to reject self-serving, benign reinterpretations of confrontational statements that lack credibility,” he explained.
Long service did not save his job
The union argued that dismissal was too harsh given Douse’s 18 years of service and clean record.
It also pointed out that two colleagues who signed the same grievance were not charged.
According to the judgment, those colleagues walked away when the altercation began.
“The parity argument raised by the applicant is without merit because the two colleagues in question were not similarly situated,” Lagrange stated.
On the insubordination charge, the court found that Douse had openly defied the instruction in front of office staff.
“Defiance of managerial authority can be established by a single act of defiance,” the judge added.
The court made no order as to costs.
“The applicant trade union litigated in good faith on behalf of its members, and the requirements of law and fairness do not warrant a costs order in this instance,” Lagrange observed.