Eskom had no right to demand men be fired

Three delivery drivers lost their jobs when Eskom told their employer that it did not want foreigners on its premises.

The men - from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola and Malawi - said they were made to sign retrenchment agreements by Grindrod Fuelogics after Eskom said it did not want them to deliver diesel fuel to Ankerlig, in Atlantis, Cape Town, a national key point.

But last week the men were reinstated by the Labour Court in Cape Town, and Grindrod was told to pay them from May 2014, when they were dismissed.

Judge Anton Steenkamp said Grindrod dismissed the drivers "merely because they are foreigners", which was contrary to a provision in the constitution banning discrimination on the grounds of "ethnic or social origin".

"For it to have done so because Eskom demanded it does not make it fair. It is still for a discriminatory reason," he said.

The men were dismissed after Eskom received a load of diesel contaminated with water. Even though there was no evidence that the drivers were to blame, Ankerlig manager Rodney Booth told Grindrod he would no longer accept deliveries from foreign drivers.

Grindrod's regional manager, Bryan Church, summoned DRC refugee Francis Kanku to the company's Paarden Eiland boardroom and told him to sign a retrenchment agreement.

Malawian Richard Linzie and Angolan Manuel Mateus were asked to sign the same document later.

Mateus told the court he felt he had been intimidated into signing.

Church denied using duress to make the men sign and argued that Grindrod had to accede to Eskom's demands or it would lose the parastatal's business. It had no choice but to dismiss the men. He admitted that the drivers were not given severance pay.

But Steenkamp said the men had been put under pressure to sign.

"I am not persuaded that the drivers entered into the agreements voluntarily," he said.

Ordering the men's reinstatement, he said that the Cape Town division of Fuelogic had closed but the company was willing to relocate the men to other of its divisions.