(Failure to wear your facial mask in the workplace during the COVID-19 pandemic). During the course of 2020, employers, employees and the whole of South Africa was confronted by the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. Various rules and regulations came into effect, including the requirement of using a facemask and to adhere to strict social distancing at all times. In the workplace, the employer may frequently be confronted with situations where employees fail to wear their necessary personal...

When a company is looking at possible retrenchments, the retrenchment must be substantively and procedurally fair. Substantive fairness refers to the reason for retrenchment and procedural fairness to the procedure to be followed i.e. consultation. The most common reason for retrenchments usually stems from either closure of business, loss of a contract or decrease in sales. The employer must show that retrenchment is the only/last option. Part of procedural fairness when the decision has been...

Some of the changes include that an employer who employs 50 staff members or more must submit a risk assessment policy, together with a written policy concerning the protection of health and safety of its employees from COVID-19. Previously this was only applicable to employees who employed 500 employees or more. To download the new OHS October Directives Guide SEESA Clients can log in to ProFile and navigate to the COVID-19 tab on the dashboard. To find out how SEESA can help your business,...

What is a Bargaining Council? A Bargaining Council can be established by either one or more Employers Organisations or Workers Unions. They must be registered under the Labour Relations Act for a specific sector or industry. A list of registered Bargaining Councils can be found on the CCMA or Department of Labour website/s for ease of reference. As mentioned these Bargaining Councils are not only limited or restricted to a specific industry, but also by the type of matters as well as disputes...

Businesses with more than 100 employees, working together in a group in the same floor space, must where possible, make provision for minimising the number of employees at the workplace at any given time, through rotation, staggered working hours, shift systems, remote working arrangements or similar measures, in order to achieve social distancing and to limit congestion in public transport and at the workplace. The relevant health protocols and social distancing measures for persons employed...

Due to the impact of COVID-19, many employers found themselves in financial distress and as such, had no alternative but to implement retrenchments to reduce personnel for the business to survive. If the circumstances are of such a nature that the business will most probably improve systematically as the levels of the national lockdown decreases and there is currently still workload to attend to, then the employer can rather implement a system of reduced working hours namely short time to...