Tag: Labour Law Management Consulting

Dereliction of duty is a charge that is tempting for employers to use especially when they are angry with the employee concerned.

When an employer fires an employee for dishonesty or gross dereliction of duty it normally intends for the employee to stay fired. However, the Labour Relations Act (LRA) dilutes the employer’s right to dismiss by:

Problems of weak disciplinary case presentation often occur. There are two important reasons for this. The person presenting the case for the employer may be insufficiently skilled in case presentation, or, the employer may have failed to prepare the evidence properly.

In the case of Jabari vs Telkom SA (Pty) Ltd (2006, 10 BLLR 924) the Labour Court highlighted three characteristics of incompatibility: Firstly - Incompatibility refers to the employee’s 'inability or failure to maintain cordial and harmonious relationships with his peers', secondly - Incompatibility is a form of 'incapacity', and thirdly - Incompatibility is an 'amorphous, nebulous concept, based on subjective value judgments'.

Common law obliges employees to be loyal to their employers, to carry out their work properly, to protect the employer’s reputation and to avoid conduct that could clash with the employer’s interests. However, there are limits to the employee’s duty of loyalty.

In order to optomise the corrective effect of discipline it needs to be implemented as swiftly as possible. This does not mean that the disciplinary process must be carried out hastily. It does mean that, psychologically and legally, unnecessary delays must be avoided.

Is the money spent on procuring and retaining employee skills an expense or an investment? Either way, employee costs are most often amongst the biggest if not the very biggest.

One of the legal terms and concepts that appear to confuse employers and employees is ‘victimisation’. This is partially because the labour statutes do not deal directly with the concept of ‘workplace victimisation’. This is most surprising in view of the fact that victimisation does interfere with the right to fair labour practice.

Many employers are still not aware of the Regulation of Interception of Communications Act (RICA) that came into effect at the end of September 2005 and that it was amended in 2008.

Employees who report employers for committing illegal or otherwise irregular acts are protected, in the first instance, by the Constitution of South Africa.