A black executive of the Law Society of South Africa has taken the organisation to the Labour Court, accusing the society of racial and gender discrimination against her.
Anna Mkwena, the society’s communications director, accuses the society and its offshoot, the Attorneys Fidelity Fund, of a range of discriminatory practices, including bias in the issuing of home and car loans, denying her the same rights and staff infrastructure as her fellow directors, using her as window dressing and victimising her for speaking out against the society.
Mkwena said she had faced “numerous challenges of gross, dehumanising discrimination and inequality” since joining the association in October 1998.
She complains of being denied a home loan by the society’s Attorneys’ Fidelity Fund despite the fact that she qualified for one and that the facility had been advertised as a job perk.
“All the white directors at the LSSA and the provincial law societies, including a negligible sprinkling of a few black faces, have home loans and car loans, which they accessed from the Attorney’s Fidelity Fund and for which they only pay 5% interest.
“What compounds this discrimination is that it is institutionalised, as 99% of the recipients of these home and car loans from the AFF are white males. [These benefits] have even been extended to ‘favourite secretaries’ some of whom are no longer employed within the society.”
Mkwena alleges that a laptop computer bought for her use was given to a white male colleague and a colleague’s old computer given to her.
In court papers, she says she was hauled before a disciplinary committee for using credit facilities to hire cars and buy air tickets for personal use, when this was common practice among directors. She was cleared on all the charges.
Mkwena claims that, unlike other directors, she does not have a secretary or a budget. She says a colleague introducing a new staff member walked into her office while she was out and said: “This is Anna Mkwena’s office, the so-called director of communications, she just has a big title, she is nothing here.”
Mkwena is demanding access to the car and home loan facilities, and compensation for pain and humiliation.
Mohamed Husain, attorney for the Fidelity Fund, said they would oppose the action because Mkwena did not have a valid claim against his clients.