CCMA unfair dismissal awarded but not informed of hearing.

[theghid]

Hi,

Our domestic worker was asked to vacate the room he was staying in on our premises and find a new place to stay. He was working for us just under a year. After this he did not report to work and filed an unfair dismissal claim at the CCMA. He has been awarded the case, however we never received the notice of arbitration in the first place. We are applying for rescission on the basis that we were not present because we were not notified of the hearing. More importantly, how do we go about proving no dismissal took place given that nothing was in writing.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[sterne.law@gmail.com]

The employee needs to prove there was a dismissal.
However, the employee will say when you asked them to leave it was a dismissal, an understandable misunderstanding.
Also, accomodation was part of the contract and you repudiated it.

These issues aside, if there was no dismissal the commissioner would say why not return to work and you could say yes, but no back pay.
At rescission you can try settle.
Two options, a nuisance payment or yes can return to work but no back pay.
On return you could also have a hearing for absence, but an ambitious step given the circumstances

[theghid]

Thank you, very helpful post. Hopefully you can assist me with a few more queries as you seem to be quite clued up on these topics.

If no dismissal was to be found, will the commissioner have jurisdiction and be able to dictate what has to be done?