Tag: Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA)

On Friday 21 January 2022, the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) delivered a much anticipated first pronouncement on the fairness of a dismissal following an employee’s refusal to receive the COVID-19 vaccination.

On 21 January 2022, the first Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) decision relating to mandatory vaccinations in the workplace was issued. The Commissioner found that the employee's dismissal for incapacity arising from her refusal to vaccinate was both procedurally and substantively fair.

A recent judgement Woolworths v CCMA and others [2021] ZALAC 49 in the Labour Appeal Court (LAC) held that an employee can be fairly dismissed for dishonesty if the employee claims to be ill and then uses sick leave entitlement to attend a sports match.

Despite South Africa’s employment equity legislation, the biases and discrimination that characterised the ‘old South Africa’ still exists in the hearts and minds of many people. Such unfair discrimination could include, but is not limited to, discrimination on arbitrary or subjective grounds such as race, gender, family responsibility, religion, age, disability, opinion, and trade union affiliation.

A while ago, I received a panic phone call from an employer who had received an unfavourable arbitration award in respect of a CCMA case they never knew existed. That is, the employer had never received a summons to appear at the CCMA but the award required the employer to pay tens of thousands of rand to an ex-employee.

The cost to the employer can include hearings at CCMA, Labour Court and Labour Appeal Court as well as back pay.

In Employment Contracts for The New World of Work, the authors discuss employment issues as they relate to the ‘new normal’, including topics such as remote and hybrid working, and the effect this has had on managerial control and authority.

As with any change in life, the longer it persists, the more we relax into it in order to find some sense of normalcy to continue with our lives. But relaxing into COVID-19 and becoming blasé about protocol is simply not an option until we have achieved immunity as a nation.

Those of us who operate in a wide range of workplaces - across all sectors and industries - will have noticed a sea change in the volume and nature of collective industrial action. Work stoppages, illegal strikes, go-slows and massive amounts of peer-to-peer intimidation amongst employee's, especially unionised workers, have increased.

An interview with Ivan Israelstam, Chief Executive, Labour Law Management Consulting, and Dr Ivor Blumenthal, CEO, ArkKonsult, discussing whether either party can take a CCMA arbitrator’s conduct on review to the Labour Court if they are able to prove that the arbitrator, in making their award, has materially broken a rule.