South Africa’s labour laws severely restrict employers’ rights. Examples of these restrictions include:

• Employees appear to have the right to motivate for permission to bring an external representative (e.g. a lawyer or trade union representative) to disciplinary hearings
• Employers may not terminate the employment of employees for reasons related to a takeover of a business as a going concern.
• Employers are obliged to renew fixed-term employment contracts if the employees concerned have a reasonable expectation of such renewal.
• Where the employer considers an employee to have absconded (left the employment without resigning) it cannot replace the employee without following a set of onerous procedures
• Where an employee accuses an employer in court or at the CCMA of having dismissed him unfairly and the existence of the dismissal is established the employer is assumed guilty of unfair dismissal until it proves itself innocent.
• Where an employer contemplates terminating the employment of an employee it is required to follow complex and stringent procedures before it can do so. Many employers find these procedural requirements so onerous that they either try to bypass them or are afraid to ever dismiss employees.

In the case of Ntoyake vs Open Arms Home for Children (2007, 10 BALR 946) the accused, the resident manager of the children’s home, was dismissed for appearing in front of the children in an intoxicated state. The CCMA agreed that Ntoyake was in fact guilty of this charge and that dismissal was an appropriate sanction. However, the arbitrator still found the dismissal to be unfair because the employee had not, at the disciplinary hearing, been given the chance to cross examine those who had raised the complaint. That is, the employer’s failure to facilitate the cross-examination phase of the disciplinary procedure caused it to lose the case.

This outcome highlights the crucial need for employers to train their managers on the stringent legal procedures required by law.

The innovative video series WALKING THE LABOUR LAW TIGHTROPE assists employers to provide their managers with very inexpensive training that allows the managers to achieve the necessary knowhow at times suitable to their very busy schedules. Its 48 chapters, averaging 10 minutes in length each, can easily be watched at junctures when the manager has time. This greatly informative yet very engaging and practical video series provides crucial and user-friendly learning through the use of a stimulating, animated case study that runs throughout the 48-chapter series. Each chapter contains clear and important advice needed by workplace management on the basics of labour law over a very wide range of topics.

A further advantage is that the manager can, for a full year, easily go back to any of the 48 videos for purposes of refresher training or in order to access information on how to deal with a current workplace issue. This solves the problem of managers forgetting what they have learned.

This video series helps management to walk the shaky labour law tightrope and to run the workplace productively without falling into the labour law abyss. 

To access our groundbreaking video series: WALKING THE NEW LABOUR LAW TIGHTROPE please go to http://www.labourlawvideos.co.za or contact Ivan on ivan@labourlawadvice.co.za

Written by Ivan Israelstam, Chief Executive of Labour Law Management Consulting