www.anniemercer.co.za - Jobs in Cape Town :: Taking your Employer to the CCMA - is it worth it?
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I remember many years back in my recruitment career sending a candidate for an interview at an extremely prestigious client.
The interview didn’t last long and my client immediately picked up the phone and yelled – “Why didn’t you tell me she took her last employer to the CCMA?” Needless to say my candidate wasn’t shortlisted. And my client wasn’t too impressed with me for a while.
Since then we have conducted thousands of verbal references, and in cases where the bitter ex has taken their employer to the CCMA, the phone call doesn’t end very well. It’s never a very long phone call. Generally it goes “Well, she took me to the CCMA, need I say more?” And they hang up.
There are employees who bring cases against employers due to vindictiveness based on some unrelated matter or because it’s easier to extort money out of employers at the CCMA than earn their money honestly.
Not only is such a practice dishonest but it is also a waste of the CCMA's and the employer's time and resources. It is therefore not surprising that the law provides for employees to be penalised for bringing frivolous or vexatious cases. Frivolous means trivial or insignificant. Vexatious means annoying and groundless. In such cases the employee can be ordered to pay part of the employer's legal costs.
Unfortunately, in many cases (not all cases) there is an undesirable personality that is associated with the type of person who takes their employer to the CCMA. Usually it’s not the type of personality you want in your organisation. It’s the person that takes as much advantage as possible, is often dishonest and lazy, and is seen as a troublemaker, and the type of person who feels the world owes them something, “The Victim”… so it’s not surprising that some clients even request CCMA background checks.
Think twice about approaching the CCMA - we believe it can do more damage than good.