Bank manager asked cleaner for sex - but it got him fired

A former Absa bank manager promised a cleaner that her job would be "safe" for the next 12 months. But his price for her job safety was sex.

The man was dismissed but he took the fight first to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) and then the Labour Court in Johannesburg, where his case was last week dismissed.

The man was the manager of an Absa branch in Pretoria when he developed a liking in a woman employed by the company providing cleaning services to the bank.

In his disciplinary hearing in 2010 it emerged that the man had cornered the woman in the kitchen and boardroom on several occasions, touched her buttocks, breasts and private parts and told her: "I must have you."

Once he told her he was "unable to hold himself back anymore" and then exposed his penis to her and forced her to touch it.

Another time, again "unable to hold himself back", he rubbed his private parts against her.

He told her she would be fired if she said anything.

The final straw for the woman was when he told her he wanted to have sex with her.

He called her to his office and suggested she would be "safe" in her job for 12 months if she kept quiet. After that, he would "make a plan" for her.

She told him she was menstruating so instead he proceeded to "relieve himself" by rubbing against her. He then offered her taxi money which she refused.

The woman laid a complaint and the man was soon dismissed after a disciplinary hearing.

He appealed unsuccessfully to the CCMA, which held that the "probabilities were overwhelmingly against him" and the woman had no reason to make the story up.

The man then asked the Labour Court in Johannesburg to review the CCMA decision, accusing the arbitrator of misconduct.

He said the arbitrator refused to consider the evidence of all his witnesses because the arbitration would take "too long". These witnesses would have discredited the woman's story, he said.

He also claimed that the arbitrator "tampered with the recording of the arbitration to disguise his transgressions".

But last week Acting Judge Sean Snyman said that man's grounds for review were "unsubstantiated and spurious".

"There are no gaps or inconsistencies or any kind of deviations in the transcript that could point to tampering. … [A]ccusing an arbitrator of tampering with a record without any substantiation for such a contention, is simply scandalous," Snyman said.

He added that the man's conduct was "entirely indefensible".

"There simply can be no acceptable or plausible explanation that could serve as justification for what the applicant did. In my view, he certainly earned his dismissal," he said.

Absa declined to comment.

Amanda Hodgeson, from gender-based violence victim support group Lawyers against Abuse, said that one of the biggest contributors to sexual harrassment in the workplace is abuse of power.

She said that women who work long hours for very little pay are often easy targets. They fear losing their jobs and often think: "Who is going to believe the tea lady over the big boss?"