Sexual Harrasment in the Workplace

Section 60 of the Employment Equity Act (EEA), in effect, provides that, if the employer fails to take the steps necessary to deal with unfair discrimination or sexual harassment, the employer himself can be charged with unfair discrimination on the grounds of sexual harassment.

This suggests that, wherever an employer becomes aware of sexual harassment it should take the disciplinary steps without unnecessary delay.

For example, in the case of Christian v Colliers Properties (2005, 5 BLLR 479) a Ms Christian was appointed as a typist by the employer.

Two days after starting work, her boss asked her if she had a boyfriend and invited her to have dinner with him. He also asked her to sit on his lap and kissed her on the neck.

When she later objected to the manager's conduct he asked her whether she was "in or out".

When she said that she was "not in" he asked her why he should then allow her employment to continue. She was dismissed with two days pay and referred a sexual harassment dispute.

In a default judgment the court decided that:
• The employee had been dismissed for refusing her superior's advances.
• This constituted an automatically unfair dismissal based on sexual discrimination
• Newly appointed employees are as deserving of protection from sexual harassment as are their longer serving colleagues
The employer had to pay the employee 24 months' remuneration in compensation as well as additional damages and interest on the amounts to be paid as well as the employee's legal costs.

The above finding might lead employers to believe that, in order to protect themselves, they need to dismiss any employee found guilty of sexual harassment.

However, this is not always so. For example, in the case of SABC Ltd v Grogan (2006, 2 BLLR 207) a regional sales manager was dismissed for (among other things) sexual harassment after he had allegedly kissed a junior female colleague several times, given her love literature and had physical contact with her in his car.