BL Premium reports that nearly 100 employees of Vector Logistics, who have been idling at home for the past five years after being dismissed for alleged participation in an illegal strike, will have to stay put as there is no end in sight to a protracted legal wrangle.
Vector is a logistics operator, providing parent company RCL Foods and other third parties with multi-temperature warehousing and distribution, sales and merchandising solutions. In March RCL Foods sold Vector to a local investment vehicle with an effective date of 3 July. Vector’s long-running dispute with the workers began in June 2018, when several employees engaged in an unprotected strike. Vector obtained an interim order restraining the strike action. After several attempts to get the striking employees to return to work, Vector dismissed about 88 of them for participation in and acting in furtherance of an unprotected strike. The fired employees approached the CCMA and bargaining councils. Eventually, the parties agreed to private arbitration. Scenario and schedule agreements for the arbitration acknowledged that the existence of the unprotected strike was not in dispute. What was in dispute was participation in, or acting in furtherance of, the strike. The arbitrator perused the company’s clocking mechanism and found that some of the employees had reported for work and he ordered their reinstatement. But, Vector took the decision on review at the Labour Court (LC) and argued that the arbitrator committed latent irregularities when he conducted a forensic assessment of the clocking information. The LC ruled in favour of Vector and ordered a new arbitration process with a new chair. But, an application for leave to appeal the LC ruling was filed on 24 April.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Kabelo Khumalo at BusinessLive (subscriber access only)
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