Limko varsity escapes sheriff's hammer
Mpho Mokwape | Friday June 14, 2019 13:28
The university that is currently in a legal battle with 42 former employees was to have its properties auctioned following a default award issued against them by the Department of Labour office early this year.
According to court documents, on February 19, 2019 a part time arbitrator, Thembo Lebang, gave the former employees default award against Limkokwing helping them leverage to auction the university’s property to recover their owed salary arrears.
This was reportedly after the university failed to show up at the set time on January 22, 2019 after both parties reportedly agreed to go for arbitration at the labour office.
“By a letter dated December 12, 2018 the Commissioner of Labour advised parties to the dispute of the decision to have an arbitration hearing. At the set time and venue both the Arbitrator and the applicants were ready to commence the hearing but the respondents had not arrived. No word was received from them until late citing transport difficulties,” read the documents.
Subsequently leading to a default award the university representatives failed to pitch up for the hearing on time.
However the university through its lawyer Moses Kadye successfully stayed the sale in execution by way of Industrial Court order issued May 31, 2019 after filing an appeal to the Arbitrator’s decision.
In a public notice, the university assured its stakeholders, staff and students that the university remained in business as per the court order.
Though the sale of execution has been successfully stayed it is still not yet over for the university as the case has been set for court arguments on August 13, 2019.
The university is appealing the arbitrator’s decision on grounds that among other things the part-time arbitrator erred in law by determining and dismissing their application for the reversal of the default award without affording them an opportunity to be heard.
That he also erred by failing to note that the default award stood to be reversed, as he did not have jurisdiction to have arbitration hearing.
“He failed by improperly rejecting our postponement despite advancing reasons for such request and that he failed to note that the dispute before him was a dispute of interest and therefore not justifiable at law,” Limkokwing stated.
Meanwhile at the heart of the dispute is whether the university owed the former employees any salary arrears under two claims.
The former employees want the university to pay salary arrears for the three percent annual salary notch for experience as it was agreed in the 2012 Collective Labour Agreement.
According to the applicants’ case, they were employed by the university in their different capacities at various dates of employment.
Their contracts of employment were then terminated on grounds of operational requirements in January 2017.
“They claim that they only realised at the time of their retrenchment that the respondent had not paid them their monthly salaries at agreed rates,” read the papers.
Their claim is reportedly in two parts, one being that up until March 2016 they were each paid a monthly salary, which had been increased annually by three percent as agreed, being a registered collective agreement that was submitted to the arbitrator prior to the hearing.
The applicants claimed that they got the three percent annually from April 2012 but only realised that respondent did not do so from April 2016 until January 16, 2017 when they were retrenched.
On the other claim by the employees, still in 2012 the parties agreed to an interim salary structure pending the conclusion of the job analysis and evaluation exercise, which was being carried out.
According to court documents the applicants claimed that the university implemented the agreed interim salary structure in 2012, however another unknown one to them in 2013 replaced it.
“The unknown structure appeared at face value to be better than the agreed one but it was not so in the long run,” the former employees claimed.