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...

The Labour Relations Act, in section 198B, provides for employees being employed on fixed-term contracts for longer than 3 months to be deemed, permanent employees. This section of the Act does not apply to. • Employees earning in excess of the remuneration threshold set by the Minister in terms of section 6(3) of the BCEA – currently R 205 433.30 per annum; • an Employer that employs less than 10(ten) Employees; or • that Employers less than 50(fifty) Employees and whose business has been in...

Much like the COVID-19 pandemic, the misconception that employers can hold their employees to successive fixed-term employment contracts is going nowhere in a hurry. Legal Advisors often hear one or more of the following scenarios: The employer wants to see if the employee is the ‘right fit’ for the workplace;The employer wants to see if the employee is truly capable of performing the job that he/she was hired for; and most oftenThe employee’s performance is not up to standard, therefore...

Employers are often faced with employees being addicted to drugs or alcohol while in employment. What are their responsibilities toward those employees and how should the problem be handled? Alcoholism and substance dependence is a kind of incapacity and not misconduct There are several South African Acts legislating how addiction and abuse should be handled in the workplace: The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa (108 of 1996);The Prevention of and Treatment for Substance Abuse Act...