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GroundUp reports that the Johannesburg Labour Court (LC) has ruled that community health workers, who for years have been employed by the health department on recurring fixed-term contracts, must be deemed permanent government employees.
The National Education, Health & Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu), on behalf of its members, has successfully overturned a previous bargaining council ruling that the temporary contracts were legal. There are an estimated 50,000 community health workers on recurring fixed-term contracts. The issue was first ventilated before the Public Health and Social Development Sectoral Bargaining Council in 2021. The commissioner found that the contracts were justified in terms of the Labour Relations Act (LRA) as they were funded by an “external source for a limited period”, namely the National Treasury. Nehawu took the ruling on review. The matter was argued before Joburg LC Acting Judge Ashley Cook in October last year. He handed down his ruling on 23 January 2025, overturning the bargaining council’s findings. On the issue of “external funding” – the legal justification in the LRA for fixing the contract terms – Judge Cook ruled that as funding for all public servants was sourced from the Treasury, this meant that it was not an “external source”, and therefore the department could not rely on it as a “justifiable reason” to deviate from the provisions of the LRA.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Tania Broughton at GroundUp
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page