A number of former Fidentia employees have gathered outside the Cape Town offices of the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA), South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) news reported on Monday.
About 80 retrenched workers want the body’s intervention into what they call ”unfair labour practices” by the company’s interim curators appointed by the Cape High Court.
Protesters say the manner in which they were fired contravenes the Labour Relations Act.
They want the CCMA to arbitrate in the dispute about the termination of employment contracts without pay or retrenchment packages.
The also want the CCMA to facilitate the establishment of a workplace forum, which will keep staff updated.
Behind bars
Last week it was reported that Fidentia boss J Arthur Brown, the man at the centre of what could be South Africa’s biggest-ever corporate-investment scandal, was behind bars.
He and group accountant Graham Maddock were arrested by the Scorpions at their luxurious Cape Town homes shortly after 8am last Tuesday.
Within hours they appeared in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court on a string of charges, including fraud of R200,3-million.
Denied bail despite the efforts of their lawyers, they are to be detained at Goodwood prison, ironically not far from Brown’s Sunset Beach mansion, until a bail hearing on March 15.
The men face charges of fraud, theft and contraventions of the Companies Act, the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act, the Reserve Bank Act and exchange-control regulations, as well as of income-tax laws. — Sapa