A negative comment about DA leader Mmusi Maimane on
WhatsApp is among the many political comments that led to the sacking of four
young FNB ANC-supporting employees.
Siphesihle Jele, Simon Masimula, Sipho Coke and Xolani
Nkosi, who were employed as premium bankers at FNB in Inanda, Sandton, were
fired for “political talk and using insulting language” after the bank
monitored their business e-mails and WhatsApp group conversations for several
months last year.
In one of the e-mails another employee, Linda Mahaye, said:
“I’m shocked Mmusi Maimane’s wife is white,” to which Jele responded: “White
voice, white party, white wife, very soon he will be a Michael Jackson and
bleach his skin.”
In his response to an e-mail from Masimula, Jele wrote: “If
we don’t want white people to look down at us, we then should stop the notion
that everything white is beautiful.
“Luck or anything good and everything black is associated
with ugliness, black sheep, etc, cos (sic) that simply means if you’re almost
white then almost beautiful and if you’re
Jele was also accused of inciting fellow employees after he
forwarded a WhatsApp message stating: “Leaders, as we wake up even on a
Saturday and going to slavery, let us also not forget that a black employee
cannot afford to buy a house, cannot afford to buy a car and also cannot afford
to provide basic commodities for his/her family. Leaders, it is upon us to
fight for equality and to transform that untransformed FNB. Leaders, it is also
true that the time is now.”
Another e-mail that landed Jele in hot water was his
response to a colleague, Sbusiso Nyembe, in which he wrote: “The imperialists
are the ones we should be using our energy and resources cos (sic) they are
milking our country and continent and they are not remorseful about that. They
brutally ruined our land, killing them, our forefathers, and they are still not
remorseful about that. Instead they want us to think they are mentally
superior.”
These comments saw Jele and his three colleagues being
accused by the bank of “making (a) racially-based and motivated statement which
is generalised, which constitutes discriminatory sloganism and which is racist
and bigoted in nature”.
They were subsequently slapped with 10 charges including
“gross misconduct and breach of your duty of good faith towards the bank”. The
four were also accused of causing “an irretrievable breakdown of the trust and
working relationships between yourself and the bank, to the extent that the
bank and its managers no longer believe that they can exercise confidence in
you to exercise your duties as a premier banker or in any other capacity at the
bank”.
In response to e-mailed questions on the matter, FNB
spokesperson Shamala Moodley said the bank “respects every employee’s
constitutional right to privacy and freedom of association”. She confirmed the
four employees were dismissed “following a thorough and vigorous internal
disciplinary and Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration
process”.
Moodley said the bank considered the matter closed.
However, the employees believed their dismissal was politically motivated.
Jele, 30, said he and his colleagues would still have been
employed by FNB if, in their intercepted conversations, they had said something
negative about the ANC or President Jacob Zuma.
Jele said his “unfair” dismissal made it virtually
impossible for him to find a new job. “Life has become a living nightmare for
me. I can’t provide for my three daughters and my family back home in
KwaZulu-Natal.
“I paid a heavy price for exercising my constitutionally
guaranteed right to freely express myself I doubt we would have been dismissed
if we had heaped praise on Mmusi Maimane and the DA.
“Our dismissal was also racially motivated because we had a
grievance against a senior white colleague who was victimising us as we were
advocates of transformation within the bank,” claimed Jele.
“Clearly, that did not go down well with the bank management,
which started, without alerting us, monitoring our e-mails, an act which was a
gross violation of our privacy.”
Masimula, 36, also said he was the breadwinner and it would
be extremely difficult to take care of his three children and his family.
“I was also taking care of my parents and extended family.
Our reputation has been seriously damaged and has made it virtually impossible
for us to get new jobs. IOL
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