‘Working from home’ 13,000km away
Professor sues Unisa to let her clock in from Washington DC
● A senior Unisa professor is taking her bosses to court, arguing that she should be allowed to “work from home” — in the US.
Professor Venitha Pillay has made the application in the interests of her disabled child, who attends a special needs school in Washington DC, 13,000km from Pretoria.
She says Unisa is a “distance education” university and she is not required to give lectures. She claims that, using digital technology, including FaceTime, e-mail, Skype, WhatsApp and the telephone, she can do her main job of overseeing master’s and doctoral students. But Unisa says this is contrary to policy, which requires full-time employees to be on campus at least once a week. It accuses Pillay of “absenteeism” and has suspended her salary.
Pillay was employed as an associate professor in Unisa’s department of educational leadership and management in 2016.
Previously she had been working on a short contract at the World Bank, based in Washington, where she found a school that met the needs of her daughter, who has cerebral palsy. Pillay was unable to find a suitable school for her in SA, she says.
“I applied for the Unisa job knowing it was a distance-learning institution with a work-from-home policy,” Pillay says in papers before the Johannesburg labour court.
“I explained my personal situation to Dr Rebotile Machaisa, the chair of the department. She said I must be tenured and achieve certain performance-related [levels] before it could be considered.
“She indicated there may be challenges but I was not too concerned. I knew of two others in the department who were rarely on campus, and one hadn’t been seen in five years.”
But, after working on campus for eight months, her application to work from home was turned down.
She was told that her child having special needs was “not considered material”, she says, and Unisa’s policy was silent on people who lived abroad.
Pillay claims the university refused to provide her with written reasons for the decision or advise her how to appeal.
There was a crisis with her daughter in Washington and so she went back there and continued to do her job remotely, travelling back to SA from time to time.
She says she received an “excellent” performance score.
In October last year, she was suspended for being absent and Unisa tried to reverse a salary payment.
Pillay went to the labour court and the issue of the salary was settled in her favour. It was agreed that from February this year, she would work from the Unisa campus. Her challenge to the “work from home” ruling was adjourned and has been set down for argument next month.
But this month Unisa again stopped her salary, citing “no work, no pay”.
Pillay began another application, seeking to stop the suspension of her pay until the outcome of her “work from home” ruling, but on Friday the Johannesburg labour court ruled against her, saying she had not complied with the previous order because she had been out of the country since August. Pillay says she is confident she will succeed in persuading the court that the rights of children with disabilities and their special needs have to be considered in employment contracts with their parents.
“I supervise postgraduate students and I manage an online master’s programme. I also chair the research committee and mentor emerging researchers. It is not necessary for me to be physically present. I can do from the US exactly what I would do in Pretoria,” she says.
Pillay says Unisa’s lack of flexibility is unfair and discriminatory — and is made worse by it failing to give a rational and reasonable response to her application, or engage with her. “It is also a critical time for my master’s and doctoral students.”
Pillay says Unisa’s attitude amounted to “a callous disregard of my daughter’s rights”.
Opposing the application, Machaisa says Pillay’s presence is required on campus. She says litigation over the matter could take many years.
“During her interview she did not indicate any intention to work from overseas. She consented, after she first went to court, to returning to campus full-time in February this year.
“In August she told me she needed to attend a function in Pietermaritzburg and disappeared.
“She has been absent from work without permission since then. She will receive her salary when she presents herself for work.”
Machaisa says Pillay’s absence has caused her personal distress and difficulties in managing the department. Unisa would take disciplinary action against Pillay and “if she is unwilling to commit to her job”, it was likely she would be dismissed.
“The choice between living abroad and working for Unisa is ultimately hers … but she cannot continue to have her cake and eat it,” says Machaisa.