CCMA RULES IN FAVOUR OF PARLIAMENT, DISMISSES NEHAWU CASE REGARDING PAYMENT OF BONUSES

“The CCMA declared in the Award that ‘it is the legislative duty of the Secretary to Parliament to ensure that the resources of [Parliament] are used efficiently.  In this regard the fact that [Parliament] as an institution had not achieved its overall targets which [it] found irreconcilable with performance achievements of 91 [percent] of its individual employees’.

In its evidence before the CCMA, Parliament stated that the review of the performance scores was a fair measure and done in accordance with its policies as a result of inconsistency between the performance of the institution based on audited results by the auditor general and the individual scores of the employees.  The CCMA Award has now confirmed this position”.

 

Click here for copy of the Arbitration Reward.

ISSUED BY THE PARLIAMENT OF RSA
Nehawu approached the CCMA to request the declaration of Parliament’s review of performance scores of employees in December 2015 as “unfair labour practice”.Parliament, Monday, 18 July 2016 – The Council for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) in an Award issued today dismissed an application by the National Education Health and Workers’ Union (Nehawu) in relation to the payment of bonuses in 2015.

The CCMA declared in the Award that “it is the legislative duty of the Secretary to Parliament to ensure that the resources of [Parliament] are used efficiently.  In this regard the fact that [Parliament] as an institution had not achieved its overall targets which [it] found irreconcilable with performance achievements of 91 [percent] of its individual employees.”

In its evidence before the CCMA, Parliament stated that the review of the performance scores was a fair measure and done in accordance with its policies as a result of inconsistency between the performance of the institution based on audited results by the auditor general and the individual scores of the employees.  The CCMA Award has now confirmed this position.

“It is clear… that a process had been followed and as provided for in terms of [Parliament’s] policy on performance management.

There is also … no evidence that [Parliament] had acted irrationally, capriciously or arbitrarily, with bias, malice or fraud or had failed to apply its mind or unfairly discriminated against the applicants when the scores were adjusted in order to achieve the approval of the Secretary to Parliament.” The CCMA found

This finding goes directly against a position assumed by the local branch of Nehawu in its submission to the Commission and in public statements the Union issued.

The CCMA further found that “[Parliament] … endeavoured to make arrangements for those of its employees and members of [Nehawu] who had been dissatisfied [with the revised scores] to still take up the issue through the processes set up … in the policy on performance management.

The further evidence of there having been only e few objections lodged ….  by dissatisfied members of [Nehawu], which issues had thereafter been resolved, suggests a general acceptance by its employees of the manner in which [Parliament] had gone about the payment of the bonuses and the dealing with subsequent disputes.”

The Award also makes a finding in respect of issues that presented difficulties for Parliament “in its pursuit of timeous conclusion” of the payment of bonuses to staff.  “Examples of such are the illegal strike which [Nehawu] had embarked on and general administrative issues brought about by, for instance, non-submissions or incomplete documentation in the assessment process by the members of the [union] most, if not all of which, were not of [Parliament’s] making” the Award says.

The CCMA Commissioner stated in his conclusion that “I am satisfied that the conduct of [Parliament] in reducing the ratings of [Nehawu’s] members is sufficiently devoid of malice, arbitrariness, negligence, is not capricious or in any way irrational and cannot therefore be said to constitute an unfair labour practice.”

In dismissing of the application by Nehawu the Commissioner states that Parliament acted fairly.

The ruling by CCMA is a thorough vindication of the position of Parliament in its submissions and public pronouncements.  Parliament’s management acted in good faith in its engagement with employee issues.  It also exposes the unreasonableness of the local branch of Nehawu and those that joined in the unfair condemnation of Parliament.

It also confirms that is untenable for anyone to operate outside of policy and the established legal framework.

Parliament hopes that this ruling will close the current chapter of negative engagement and help solidify a commitment to work together in transforming the institution to offer an even more efficient support service to Parliament in discharging its constitutional responsibility.