Nechama Brodie A Toyota manager has been dismissed for allegedly e-mailing a caricature of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to his colleagues.
The cartoon, which features Mugabe’s face pasted on to the body of a gorilla, with the words, “We want the farms to grow more bananas,” was thought to contribute to racial tensions in the workplace, and contravened the motor manufacturer’s internal e-mail policy. The man at the centre of the controversy, Soon Cronj,, was one of many South Africans who received the image in the build-up to Zimbabwe’s recent elections. He was also a representative of the Staff Association of Motor and Related Industries, and was engaged in negotiations for three other cases, involving other employees, against Toyota at the time of his dismissal. Cronj, was singled out after a colleague filed a grievance against him. Two other staff members at the assembly branch, who distributed sarcastic e-mails in which whites
“apologised” to Mugabe for bringing facilities such as railways and hospitals to Zimbabwe, have been given final warnings but have not been dismissed. Despite union concerns that Cronj,’s dismissal was due to political pressures, the Toyota Group’s human resources director, Harry Gazendam, maintains that the dismissal was the result of normal internal procedures. According to Toyota’s Internet and e-mail policy, the service is reserved for business communications and, in addition, may not be used for any kind of inflammatory
material. Once a complaint was filed, Cronj, was charged with “distributing racialistic [sic] and or inflammatory
material”, displaying behaviour unbecoming to a manager and violating company policy. While the decision against Cronj, is being appealed against, it could set a legal precedent for employees who have access to e-mail and the Internet at their place of work, if the dismissal is upheld by the Commission for Conciliation,
Mediation and Arbitration. “Employees will have to learn to be more circumspect with their e-mails in future,” says labour lawyer Jeremy Crawford – although deciding what is and what is not acceptable may prove difficult to establish. “Depicting Mugabe as a gorilla can be construed as racist in nature,” says Crawford, “but such statements tend to be a question of convenience. When [police National Commissioner] Jackie Selebi used the reference, it was not perceived as racist. The particular context of this e- mail also needs to be taken into account.” Cronj, maintains that the cartoon was an example of political satire rather than racist material.