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'Take leave to lose weight'
23/04/2008 07:28 - (SA)
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| Phana Motlale says she weighs 135kg. (Victor Boqo, Die Burger) |
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Sanri van Wyk, Beeld
Potchefstroom - A factory worker from North West province claims she was sent on unpaid sick leave to lose weight.
Phana Motlale, 31, a general factory worker at Fourie's Poultry Farms - more commonly known as Chubby Chick - threatened to take the company to the labour court.
Motlale, who had been working for the company for about five years, said she weighed 135kg.
She claimed her employer sent her on unpaid sick leave on January 25 and told her to lose weight.
"They said I must come back on May 5 to be weighed. If I haven't lost weight, they're going to ask me to resign."
Risk to her own safety
Motlale claimed that the reason she was given was that she was a risk to her own safety if she did not lose weight.
"I was not told why I was a risk to my own safety. I sit and work so I don't understand how that is possible."
Since she had been on leave, Motlale had not lost a single kilogram, she said.
Chubby Chick's personnel manager, Dr Callie van der Merwe, said the company had decided to send Motlale on leave because of her chronic medical problem.
He said that Chubby Chick's employees were entitled to 30 days of sick leave in a three-year cycle.
The month that she was absent was deducted from the entire time she was away. Thus she wouldn't be paid for more than a month for the time that she was away.
She had been absent since January 25.
Van der Merwe said Motlale, in front of a union representative, had been given the option of using her personal leave.
Discrimination or work requirement?
She had not wanted to do so, he said. Van der Merwe said he noted Motlale's allegation about weight, but denied it.
"One can't send someone on sick leave to lose weight."
He said he did not have the authority to discuss Motlale's medical condition with the media, but said it was possible that obesity could be a cause or a symptom of her medical condition.
A labour-law expert from Johannesburg, who asked not be named for professional reasons, said that in this case, one would have to ask whether it was a matter of discrimination or of a work requirement.
He cited the example of an air hostess where slimness could be seen to be a work requirement.
Resignation could not be forced. Misconduct, incapacity to do the work and operational requirements were the only three reasons for which a person could be fired, said the expert.
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