Percy Callaghan and Mike Loewe
The dismissal of a kitchen worker at a Rhodes University residence for taking a bit of left-over jam has outraged sections of the university but the human resources department is standing firm.
Eunice Onceya (47), a diabetic, widowed mother of five, said she took about 30g of jam to spread on bread because she was feeling faint. The university disputes the amount, claiming she took 250g.
And although it was her first offence, theft, said human resources director Bruce Smith, is one issue on which which all parties at Rhodes have agreed there will be no warning system.
This week Rhodes politics Professor Roger Southall tore a strip off the administration for its ”colonial mindset”.
”The university is holding firm. More power to its elbow,” he wrote in a furious, satirical letter to the Mail & Guardian. ”Thank God for employers like Rhodes, who are prepared to stand up for good, old-fashioned, colonial values.”
There have been two hearings since Onceya’s offence last year. Smith said the first was at catering department level on November 13, and the second a formal hearing starting on February 21.
At both hearings Onceya was represented by her union, the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu).
Smith said that in the hearing the union accepted that Onceya’s admission of theft meant that dismissal could follow without any warning system operating, a stated condition of employment understood by all parties from the commencement of employment to termination.
She was dismissed on February 28 and given a right of appeal but although Onceya, Smith said, came to his office to ask if her appeal had been submitted, the 10-day deadline was not met.
Complicating the issue are technical points: the amount of the jam and Onceya’s diabetic status.
Nehawu negotiator Nkosana Khuselo, who represented Onceya at the first hearing, said Onceya took only enough left-over jam to spread on a sandwich or two. However, his acceptance signature is contained on an official university finding of that first hearing which states that the amount was 250g.
Onceya said the lunch provided for kitchen workers two slices of brown bread, one naartjie, one glass of fruit juice and a green salad had not been enough.
”I was hungry then” and, more ominously, for a diabetic, ”I felt faint.” She intended to eat the jam on a slice of bread in the scullery.
The role of her diabetes was apparently discussed at the first hearing, according to Khuselo, who said catering manager Jay Pillay had said she would ”look into it”.
However, no sign of the issue being raised appeared at any further stage of the dismissal proceedings.
A representative for Rhodes vice-chancellor Dr David Woods said Onceya would not be allowed to appeal as the 10-day period had lapsed. To allow her to breach the rule would set a precedent for other appeals. Eastern Cape News