MANAGERS SOAPBOX

This month we feature an article published in The Star on 18th January 2005 featuring our very own Rowene Bowker. Rowene is asked whether GOLF DAYS ARE A FORM OF DISCRIMINATION.

A golf day for a company's top clients has been arranged and all the men have been invited, leaving the women behind to ensure the smooth running of the business.The women are unhappy that the men not only get a day off, but that the company will have spent maybe R600 or R700 per head on each of the men, for green and caddy fees, prizes, meals and drinks, etc.The women feel it is their right to also be treated to a day off and an equivalent amount to spend as they please, such as on shopping or a day at a health spa.Does this constitute discrimination in the workplace and do the women have a case?Rowene Bowker, Branch Manager of Manpower, Gauteng, says: "In the business world, golf is an established and accepted practice which plays an important role in company and client relations."I feel that companies have an obligation to their staff to be fair. Apart from the possible unfair discrimination, the other scenario where golf-playing females are excluded, while their non-golfing male colleagues are invited along for the ride, can be demotivating for the excluded staff and would certainly not be in the interests of good employee relations within a company."Lisa-Ann King, a director of Fluxmans Labour on the Move, feels that there were grey areas in the scenario, which need to be clarified."From a labour relations point of view, it could certainly be regarded as unfair discrimination if all the men went off for the day, regardless of whether they play golf or not, and some of the women who do play golf were excluded.""In most offices, however, it would be standard practice for all the golfers, male and female, to be invited," she says."In an extreme case where all the guys get invited, even those who don't play golf, but the women golfers are excluded, that could certainly be viewed as discriminatory and the women would have a case."But whether it's worth going to war over is debatable. Perhaps we need a test case to determine the merits of such an argument!" "Golf is undoubtedly one of the sacred cows of the business world and it would be a brave soul who would launch an attack against this tradition. But companies would do well to heed the advice given above and to adopt a fair and balanced approach if they don't want to end up at the CCMA or investing a good sum of money for a day at a spa for all the non-golfers!" added Bowker. By Workplace Staff