[lg policy] Durban: 'I was fired for speaking Zulu'

[Harold Schiffman]

'I was fired for speaking Zulu'
Oct 6, 2009 11:14 PM| By
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Thembisile Timber wants a college and its principal to cough up
R2.5-million for firing her because she spoke Zulu at work.

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" 'I don't want my job back, but I've lost an income' " Jacob Zuma
Durban's Equality Court yesterday delivered a summons to the board of
the city's Rosebank College, and its principal, Genee Griffiths, to
respond to Timber's claim that she was unfairly discriminated against.
According to an affidavit by Timber, a former clerk at the college,
Griffiths summoned her to her office on March 6 after walking in on a
conversation in Zulu that she was having with a colleague.  "She said
that I had breached the school's language policy by speaking Zulu and
that I was suspended with immediate effect," Timber, 45, said in court
papers.

Seven days later, she was given the axe when the college board ruled
against her at an internal disciplinary hearing. She applied to the
Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration to get her job
back, but this failed because, she says, of a "technicality".  Timber
then approached the Equality Court.  "The court can help me understand
why I was dismissed because I spoke my home language. I also cannot
understand why my colleague was not fired, yet he too had spoken
Zulu," she said in court papers.
"The language policy was never shown to me and I did not sign an
undertaking to uphold such a policy."

Timber said "99%" of students studying at Rosebank College speak Zulu
on campus. She said she had "been used many times" as an interpreter
when Zulu-speaking parents spoke to the principal. "My job description
never demanded me to speak only English so I do not know why I am now
in an unemployed position. "I do not want my job back because the
issue has gone too far, but I have lost an income. I want to be
compensated and I want an explanation."  The college and principal
have been given 10 days to file responding papers.  The principal
declined to comment yesterday.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/news/article140553.ece#
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