Ah, the CCMA

10th October 2014

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy

  

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The Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) states on its website: “[We are] a dispute resolution body established in terms of the Labour Relations Act (LRA), 66, of 1995. [We are] an independent body, [do] not belong to and [are] not controlled by any political party, trade union or business. The governing body is the supreme policymaking body of the CCMA and consists of a chairperson, three State representatives, three representatives from organised labour and three representatives from organised business, all of whom are nominated by [the National Economic Development and Labour Council], and the director of the CCMA nominated by the governing body.”

I think the intent of the CCMA is to make sure that nobody is unfairly dismissed from employment and that nobody is unfairly employed and, if they are, that compensation is either agreed between the parties or, if there is no agreement, ordered through arbitration by a commissioner who is trained in law. Or is it? I do not really know.

An employee took my practice to the CCMA recently. The commission decided that dismissal of the staff member was “for a fair reason but procedurally unfair” and it ordered us to pay.

I could bleat on about how the employee was a hindrance to our practice, and so on. But let us for the moment consider the bigger picture. Let us say that I am the worst boss since Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia (Vlad the Impaler), known for executing his enemies by impalement. Let us say that I have the employment attitude of Simon Legree (who flogs Tom the slave to death in Uncle Tom’s Cabin). Let us say that I am a lineal descendant of the Roman emperor who crucified Spartacus and his 5 999 slave army mates along the Appian way. Just say.

I went to the CCMA since I was commanded to do so. I did not think we had behaved unfairly. The CCMA commissioner wrote that dismissal of the staff member was “for a fair reason but procedurally unfair”. In other words, “you should have read the rules better, numb nuts”. The desired reaction to this is, presumably, that I will in the future continue to employ people but I will learn the correct procedures of the Labour Relations Act or employ an organisation that will assist us with interpreting the Labour Relations Act.

The actual result is neither of these. When my dear mother was alive, she worked as a personal assistant for a Murray & Roberts boss. She typed, he could not. She knew spelling and grammar, he did not. She could arrange air tickets, follow up on invoices, take minutes of meetings, schedule meetings, generate invoices and all that good stuff. He could not. She was darn good at it.

I recently discovered that the answer to having all these excellent services is not to employ somebody to do them, or not directly anyway. Using email, skype and remote dictation systems, I now communicate with a person who lives somewhere (I do not know where) and does all these fabulous things for me. She is called a virtual assistant (VA) and costs 8% of the cost of the employee who took me to the CCMA. It is a dream. All I do is send an email or dictate a letter or specification, and back it comes, apple-snap! Perfect in every way.

In the past (and this is true, no matter how twee it sounds) I considered that it was my duty (as an engineer and employer) to see how widely I could cut the cake to employ as many people as possible so that all who needed it had some sort of income to live on and raise their family if they had one. All that is out the window now. I did not do a course in the Labour Relations Act at university and I am not doing one now. I am a professional engineer so I will stick with proce- dures I know. The VA may not decorate the office or provide small talk, but that is not what I need. One job fewer in the market. I am sure the CCMA has its wonderful uses. By not employing real people, I can avoid those uses. So what?

Edited by Martin Zhuwakinyu
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

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