Employment Equity Workshops aimed at eliminating harassment in the workplace
“Real transformation makes business sense”...
The Department of Labour and the Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) have embarked on a nationwide Employment Equity Workshop.
This is as a way of educating South Africans about the Code of Good Practice, which has been gazetted and speaks on the elimination and prevention of harassment in the workplace.
Something of a downplayed topic, particularly because it makes people uncomfortable, but a real one nevertheless.
Deputy Director for Employment Equity, Lucia Rayner, told Business Insider: "Harassment must not be cheap, culprits must be held accountable and disciplined."
She went on to say that "employers need to have a harassment policy in place to specify the range of disciplinary sanctions that must be proportionate to the seriousness of the harassment in question."
As much as it is welcomed to hear this from a high-ranking individual from the Department of Labour (DOL), what measures are in place to ensure that this is in fact being practiced by employers?
The Code of Good Practice was published in March 2022 and aims to address the prevention, elimination, and management of the various types of harassment that occur in the workplace.
According to the EE, forms of harassment can be considered as discriminatory and is prohibited on anyone.
"It defines harassment to include the use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against another person or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in social injustice, economic harm, injury, death, physical and psychological harm, mal-development or deprivation." (Business Insider)
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Cases taken to the CCMA since 2019 have fluctuated, but the numbers are expected to rise, considering many South Africans are returning to the workplace.
Many people end up in psychiatric facilities due to the unresolved harassment cases. Sometimes people remain quiet out of fear of losing their jobs, or out of fear that they will not be believed, to name a few.
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