This South African worker was dismissed over a tweet
The CCMA recently had to deal with the case of a worker who was dismissed over a post on Twitter.
This South African worker was dismissed over a tweet photo credit: canva
The CCMA recently had to deal with the case of a worker who was dismissed over a post on Twitter.
Case
Sean Jamieson, senior associate at Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyer, explained that the case centered around a company which sent its workforce home after the national state of disaster was declared at the end of March 2020.
A couple of days afterwards, management received confirmation that it was regarded as an essential service and proceeded to advise employees to return to work, however the employee had already been granted leave to attend a traditional ceremony in Transkei.
Annual leave
After several messages between the employee and the employer, the employee realized that the employer was unwilling to arrange transport for him to return to work and that if the employee did not return to work he would have to take annual leave and once that was exhausted, unpaid leave.
These exchanges prompted the employee to send a tweet to the president and the SAPS, claiming the employer had forced its employees to return to work and if they couldn’t, they were required to take annual leave.
The company viewed the tweet as misconduct and submitted that the employee had contravened their social media policy and code of ethics, causing them to dismiss the employee.
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