UJ Prevented Mentally Disabled Employee from Rightfully Accessing Insurance Benefits & R 1.1 m in Retirement Funds

UJ, from academics, deans, HR and management through to the vice-chancellor’s office, is happy to bully and intimidate its employees with Cliff-Dekker lawyers, and use lawyers’ letters and abuse labour law to frustrate its employees’ family members by withholding information around benefits being paid for as a part of their remuneration. I urge any potential and existing employees and affected parties to beware of the disgusting tactics utilised by this so-called “institution of learning” to They don’t even have the decency to follow their own policies. And have time and time again, in black-and-white writing, breached labour law, financial services law and as far as I can evidence, even the Constitution of South Africa – either vindictively or out of sheer incompetence. I have witnessed this myself over the last 2 or so years, where the fact that my mother received a permanent diagnosis which had left her mentally disabled in August 2021, and was communicated to the appropriate HOD in February 2022 was ignored. Only for UJ to follow this up with launching disciplinary proceedings and unleashing lawyers’ letters to prevent access to insurance benefits to which she was always entitled, in April 2023. I helped my mother’s attorney build a case, and despite at least two doctors’ notes stating that she could not be expected to defend herself in said disciplinary proceedings, was forced to attend the hearing with an advocate in her stead, on Friday, 24 June 2022. The charges were withdrawn and only parts of the necessary information provided to me via on the morning of the hearing. In leading up to the hearing, UJ requested to “negotiate a settlement” but this was in bad faith. No meeting nor forum to negotiate was ever set up. Instead, a lawyer’s letter indicating that she can take up early retirement was produced – to which I rejected out-of-hand because I knew that early retirement is not free and they still had not provided any information regarding their disability policy, disciplinary code of conduct nor the insurance benefits which were designed to help her in this very situation. I performed a calculation and estimated the cost of this “nice gesture” at R 1.1 million and demanded that they top up her retirement funds by this amount to account for the loss in future retirement contributions and the investment returns not earned by UJ requesting that she retire early. They did not reply in writing, but my mother’s attorney indicated that “They will not give your mother a cent.” In September 2023, I pulled her retirement fund statements and can evidence that in fact my estimate was not far off. I have it from other employees that there were 50 incapacity cases alone in 2023 and that management in other parts of the institution waits too long to notify the relevant support services, who, at least when I have dealt with them have been responsive, co-operative and even apologetic (when they are not the problem). In June 2023, after being told unprofessionally that my mother’s claim had been deferred and posed – opaquely, I might – questioned which had been answered by myself or the litany of medical professionals from my mother’s GP of 20 years, the diagnosing neuropsychiatrist, the neurologist who confirmed the diagnosis and its permanence, an occupational the******, and neuropsychologist, I had to go straight to the principal officer of the retirement fund and within 20 minutes, I was provided with documents and information which should have been provided well over a year prior.

With one of the applicable insurance policy documents and my mother’s staff number, I was able to confirm that well after 15 months of informing my mother’s line manager, the HOD, in February 2022, the insurer was unaware of any claim related to my mother's condition. I have been unable to encapsulate all details of the various ways in which this situation has been mishandled but in September 2023, I lodged a formal grievance in line with UJ’s formal internal complaints policy. As she is (unofficially) of unsound mind, I had to do so on her behalf and the acknowledgement of that was the first I heard from the dean of faculty. I have not heard from others in senior management despite offering several opportunities for this to occur. It cannot be sensible for that HOD to have been promoted to a role with even more demanding people management skills when he worsened this situation. In responding to that grievance, UJ has continued to breach its own disciplinary code and I recently heard, through its tip off service in writing, that they are allegedly in touch with the employee (if they mean my mother, neither myself nor she has heard from them) and that UJ maintains that there is no evidence of ********* conduct. The latter being patently false. I have mounds and mounds of evidence – one of my resolutions was evidence that employees I named be disciplined if proof that they have not yet been disciplined cannot be provided. My view is the least that can be done is to repay my mother for the legal costs she did not need to incur since UJ dropped the charges and to quote the words of their Cliff-Dekker attorney, “We didn’t have to be there this morning.” Some consideration should also be given to the fact that the employees wasted a lot of my own time as well as that of their own, added a lot of unnecessary stress and simply did not do basic things like listen to reason, act in good faith or follow UJ’s policy, which was sufficiently clear on how this should be handled. So, in addition, I have requested damages as well as evidence that controls are implemented to prevent this from happening again.