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Mail & Guardian reports that a recent Constitutional Court (ConCourt) judgment empowers employers to change their workers’ employment conditions if the further functioning of a company requires this and, should workers refuse the changes, they may be dismissed without severance.
Last week, the court ruled against a group of National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) workers, who were dismissed amid a strained restructuring process at Aveng Trident Steel. Adv. Greg Fourie SC, commented that the judgment was potentially a big victory for employers, especially as they sought to rebuild in the wake of Covid-19. Before the judgment, employers could not change their workers’ contracts — how much they were paid and what jobs they did — without consulting them. “It wasn’t clear what the employer could do to force the change. Would the employer simply have to keep paying a full salary until they go into liquidation, or would they have to retrench some of the people? … But the judgment allows an employer to force a change with the threat of dismissal,” Fourie explained. This must happen through a retrenchment process and not through collective bargaining. The ConCourt agreed that the dismissals by Aveng were not automatically unfair in terms of section 187 of the Labour Relations Act. The judgment concluded that, on a plain reading of section 187, “it cannot be suggested that the section should not be interpreted in a manner that permits dismissal for operational requirements”. But decisions to change workers’ basic conditions of employment must be made in good faith. The ConCourt judgment added that employers did not have carte blanche to dismiss workers.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Sarah Smit at Mail & Guardian (paywall access only)
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page