South Africa’s labour legislation provides very heavy protection for employees. That is, numerous and imposing obstacles in the law and in the legal system make it extremely difficult for employers to dismiss those employees who deserve to be dismissed. These...

Item 92 of the CCMA’s Guidelines: Misconduct Arbitrations makes it most important that, when the employer is contemplating the dismissal of an employee, it should be able to show that the employee’s offence was so serious that it made “a continued employment...

Item 4 of the Code of Good Practice: Dismissal (The Code) contained in Schedule 8 of the Labour Relations Act (LRA) states that, when an enquiry is held into an employee’s alleged misconduct “The employee should be allowed …… the assistance of a trade union...

Even where it has been proved beyond any doubt at arbitration that an employee has committed an extremely serious offence, the employer will not have discharged its legal duty to prove that the employee deserved to be dismissed. Schedule 8 indicates that an employee...

In one of my recent articles I touched on the issue of productivity at the workplace. I mentioned that, now more than ever, businesses and their employees need to team up so as to ensure that the business and its people survive and prosper during and post Covid.  The...

The most frequent question I am asked is, “How do we productively manage employees working from home?”  This question is not only important during the lockdown. It will also be crucial post lockdown because the working from home trend will, in many cases, continue...

This is the first in a series of articles on changes and dangers in labour law.  During 2014 and 2015 the Department of Labour introduced a spate of new legislation with far reaching significance for employers. These major amendments have increased the already...

2020 was a year of terror at workplaces because of the physical and financial dangers posed by Covid19. Due to the fact that the roll out of the vaccine will be slow we can expect 2021 to be as terrifying as was 2020, if not even more so. This is because Covid is...

The drafters of the Labour Relations Act of 1995 (LRA) expressly provided for a right to be heard in the statute. That is, section 188 of the LRA states that a dismissal is unfair if the employer fails to prove that it was effected in accordance with a fair procedure....

Feelings of spite arise at work for a great variety of reasons such as:  Resentment due to the lodging of grievances Power struggles between managers Racial and other prejudices Scapegoating Managers feeling threatened by other managers or senior staff Sexual affairs...

Schedule 8 of the Labour Relations Act (LRA) says that dismissal is only appropriate for those serious offences that make “a continued employment relationship intolerable”. Such serious offences could include, for example, gross insubordination, endangering the safety...

One must go far back in South African History to find a time when as many employees were losing their jobs as is happening right now. While retrenchments are at an historical high mutually agreed terminations are also on the increase. The reasons that such a package...