Top court downs Toyota arbitration review bid

THE Constitutional Court has dismissed with costs Toyota SA Motors’s bid to have the arbitration process of dismissed employee and former manager Makoma Makhotla reviewed.

Toyota appointed Mr Makhotla in 2006. From February 28 to March 3 2011, Mr Makhotla failed to report for duty for four days.

He then submitted a resignation letter shortly before the company began a disciplinary process against him that went ahead and culminated in his dismissal despite his resignation.

Mr Makhotla and the Retail and Allied Workers Union referred the dismissal to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA), which ordered the company to reinstate him and pay him six months’ remuneration amounting to R218,400. The company sought an appeal in the Labour Court.

However, the company experienced difficulty in pursuing this route and having the process reviewed because of its delays in reconstructing records of Mr Makhotla’s CCMA arbitration.

The Labour Court dismissed the case.

The Constitutional Court also highlighted the delays. “The steps taken by Toyota were characterised by delays for which Toyota did not provide a reasonable explanation. This court held that the Labour Court was justified in dismissing the review application,” the Constitutional Court judgment read.

In a dissenting judgment, however, Justice Raymond Zondo said Toyota SA should not be penalised for the delay because the company took steps to pursue the matter. Justice Zondo also held that because Mr Makhotla had submitted his resignation, reinstatement was not a competent remedy.

Justice Malcolm Wallis agreed with the main ruling, saying Justice Zondo’s dissenting judgment discounted the delays by Toyota in pursuing the review in the Labour Court, while failing to explain them. Justice Wallis did not agree that Toyota had any real prospect of proving any gross irregularity in the arbitration process before the CCMA.

During his four-day absence, Mr Makhotla made several attempts to alert his employer that he would not report for duty and about the duration of time it would take him to get back to work. However, when he returned to his place of employment he was served with a notice to attend a disciplinary inquiry.

Toyota took issue with the fact that Mr Makhotla had given contradictory accounts for his absence, including that he was not feeling well, he was in the Drakensberg “clearing his head” and, after his return to work, that he had to rescue a girl from an initiation school to which she had been abducted.

Toyota further took issue with the conclusions by the Labour Court that there was an obligation on the litigants to take notes of the arbitration proceedings, and that it had no prospects of success in the review.

Repeated attempts to reach Toyota SA and the Retail and Allied Workers Union for comment were unsuccessful yesterday.