CCMA buzzing with hearings

The Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration has seen a doubling in the number of discrimination cases since the Employment Equity Act came into effect on August 1 last year.

The act allows the CCMA to arbitrate in certain cases rather than parties having to go through the expense of the Labour Court.

Lowly-paid workers, earning below R205433 a year can now refer discrimination cases to arbitration.

All sexual harassment cases can be arbitrated.

CCMA director Nerine Kahn said yesterday: "We had 63 cases of discrimination on race, six of gender, six of religion, 13 of disability and a couple of HIV."

In one of the incidents an employee won an order for constructive dismissal and damages for medical expenses after she was sexually harassed.

The woman alleged there had been three incidents of sexual harassment, including one in which her breast was touched. This caused her to eventually resign.

In another case, a 16-year-old girl who had dropped out of school to support her family was allegedly forced to have sex with a manager during her first month of employment.

She took the matter to the CCMA.

After arbitration she received money that covered her legal fees and she went back to school to complete her matric. An employee has six months from the date of the incident to refer the case to the CCMA.

To deal with the new law, Kahn said the CCMA had trained more than 100 commissioners to deal with cases of discrimination.

The commission was allotted a n extra R60-million to deal with the transition - on top of its regular budget to deal with the Employment Equity Act.

Over the past financial year, the CCMA facilitated 515 large-scale retrenchments, an increase of 38% over the previous year.

CCMA legal services head Cameron Morajane said though the downturn in the economy played a role in the increase in cases seen, the uptick was also the result of a greater awareness of services the CCMA offered.