Dismissals for Poor Work Performance – an Employer’s Guide.
Employers should ensure that probationary and non-probationary employees are, amongst other things, aware of the required performance standards applicable to their position, give employees necessary guidance, counselling, mentoring and training to ensure satisfactory service, and to allow reasonable time for employees to improve the standard of their work performance. It is imperative that employers ensure that any dismissals relating to poor work performance are fully compliant with the Act and the Code of Good Practice: Dismissal (and any other applicable labour legislation).
2023 Amendments to the CCMA rules
The Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (“CCMA”) is the first port of call for the majority of disputes concerning the employment relationship and serves not only as a forum aimed at facilitating amicable and expeditious resolutions to employment disputes but also as a court of first instance for adversarial proceedings arising between, amongst others, more...
We are proud to announce that Peter Turner has been promoted to Senior Associate at DML.
Peter was admitted as an attorney in December 2012 and holds LLB and LLM (Constitutional Law) degrees obtained from the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Since his admission as an attorney, Peter has practiced mainly, although not exclusively, in the fields of commercial litigation / dispute resolution and labour law. Before joining DML Inc in February 2018, more...
Mandatory Workplace Vaccination Polices: So it Begins…
On 21 January 2022 the CCMA delivered its findings in the unfair dismissal dispute of Mulderij v The Goldrush Group (case number: GAJB-24054-21), where it confirmed that the dismissal of an employee pursuant to a refusal to adhere to an employer’s mandatory workplace vaccination policy (“MWVP”) may be considered substantively fair. It is the first more...
Mandatory COVID-19 vaccination in the workplace
On 11 June 2021, the Department of Employment and Labour published an Amended Consolidated Direction on Occupational Health and Safety Measures in Certain Workplaces (“Directions”). The Directions provide various guidelines to employers pertaining to social distancing, the wearing of cloth masks, COVID-19 symptom screening and the importance of adequate ventilation in the workplace. Most importantly, more...
Summary Suspensions in Employment Law – Long or right?
Many, if not all, employers have had to grapple with the riddle of how best to deal with employees who have misconducted themselves to a degree requiring suspension, and how best to affect such a suspension (pending lawful disciplinary proceedings, of course) whilst giving effect to the employee’s fair process rights under South African employment more...
Maintenance: Ignorance of the law is not an excuse
As the age old saying goes “Ignorance of the law is not an excuse”. The position under South African law is clear - both parents have a duty to maintain their children according to their respective means, until such a time that the children become self-supporting. The fact that a parent is not in contact more...
Dismissal versus retrenchment due to restructuring: Operational or Unfair?
A recent Constitutional Court (“CC”) judgment has allowed employers to breathe a collective sigh of relief in the comfort that they cannot be threatened with unfair dismissal proceedings where an employee has unreasonably rejected an employer’s proposals aimed at avoiding retrenchments, and where the employer commences to dismiss the employee by reason of its operational more...
The long walk to freedom: the ‘cans’ and ‘still cant’s’ of the Alert Level 2 Regulations
On Tuesday, 18 August 2020, at 0h00, the South African national lockdown was downgraded from Alert Level 3 to Alert Level 2. Regulations prescribing the legal parameters of the Alert Level 2 restrictions and allowances were published on the same day. For many South Africans, the Alert Level 2 Regulations (“the Regulations”) provide the first more...
COVID-19 Update – Alert Level 3 Stays in place (with further restrictions) as we prepare for “the storm”:
His address did not declare an escalation of the alert level currently in place, as widely expected, but rather confirmed that whilst the Alert Level 3 Regulations would, for now, remain in force, that these Regulations would be further limited and refined in certain respects. The increase in the degree of restriction under the Level 3 Regulations was justified by the President as being necessary to curb the impending storm predicted early on by experts advising government
The Fortnight Ahead: Amendments to the Lockdown Regulations following its Extension:
Following the declaration by President on 15 April 2020 that the national lockdown will be extended by two weeks, various amendments to the existing lockdown Regulations were published on 16 April 2020 (“the Amendments”). These amendments will govern private and commercial transactions and restrictions until the lockdown is lifted, which for now is set as being on 01 May 2020. This article will briefly discuss the most relevant of these amendments and their impact.
The Plascon-Evans Rule and the need for a more robust approach:
It is a well-established principle that a litigious civil matter can be commenced in one of two ways, either by way of legal action or by way of application/motion. The material distinction between these two diverging paths lies in whether the ultimate adjudication of the matter is possible on a consideration of affidavits (written evidence more...