The Citizen reports that officials from the Parliamentary Legal Services recently briefed the Portfolio Committee on Employment and Labour on possible shortcomings or gaps in the Basic Conditions of Employment Act (BCEA).

Parliamentary legal adviser Telana Halley-Starkey informed MPs that section 18(2)(b)(ii) of the BCEA relating to pay on a public holiday contained “semantic ambiguity”. This section states that if employees work on a public holiday, they must be paid their normal daily wage plus extra pay for the hours they actually work that day – but only if this total is more than double their normal daily wage. “So, the legal issue is (that) the interpretation of that section is not clear. The confusion then lies in the pronoun ‘it’. A question that may arise is which noun is ‘it’ referring to. What is the ‘greater’ that the section refers to?” Halley-Starkey asked. She explained that although the section was faulty in syntax, there have been no interpretation issues raised by legal experts or any court. “The common interpretation, therefore, is that the employer either pays the employee double the normal wage or the normal wage plus any amount that is earned on the day, whichever is greater of the two,” Halley-Starkey noted. She proposed removing the phrases “at least double” and “if it is greater” from the section, and instead including the wording “the higher amount of the following” to improve clarity. However, according DA MP Juliet Basson, the current wording of the section seemed to favour the employer. Separately, DA MP, Michael Bagraim emphasised the need to clarify how public holidays were treated when they fell on a Sunday.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Molefe Seeletsa at The Citizen

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