The LabourLink blog
Practical, cited guides to the problems that reach our desk: referrals, hearings, retrenchments, compliance and the paperwork behind them.
General information on South African labour law, not legal advice on your facts.
Disputes and CCMA support
Check the dates first. An unfair dismissal dispute must be referred within 30 days of the dismissal or the final decision to dismiss, and a late referral needs condonation on good cause. Then build the file, check who may attend under the CCMA Rules and set a settlement mandate.
Disputes and CCMA support
The 2025 Code of Good Practice: Dismissal asks for four things: notice of the allegations, a reasonable time to prepare and respond on both the allegations and the sanction, the assistance of a fellow employee or union representative, and a language the employee is comfortable with where reasonably possible.
Restructuring and collective relations
A retrenchment is fair when the reason is genuinely operational and the employer consults before deciding. A full s189(3) notice, good faith consultation, agreed or fair and objective selection criteria and at least one week's severance pay per completed year of service are the baseline.
Restructuring and collective relations
A mutual separation works when the employee genuinely chooses it, has time to take advice and receives clear written terms. If the employer in fact imposed it, the Labour Relations Act's broad definition of dismissal may bring it before the CCMA.
Compliance and governance
Since 1 January 2025 an employer with 50 or more employees is a designated employer under the Employment Equity Act, whatever its turnover. That brings consultation, an analysis, an EE plan, a s24 senior manager and annual reports, which may be filed online from 1 September to 15 January.
Compliance and governance
HR files hold special personal information such as health, union and biometric data. Start with an information map, an employee privacy notice, security safeguards, a retention schedule, a registered Information Officer and a breach plan.
Compliance and governance
More than 20 employees in a workplace means health and safety representatives: one for every 50 employees, or every 100 in shops and offices. Two or more representatives means a committee that meets at least every three months.
People operations and HR outsourcing
Annual leave is at least 21 consecutive days per cycle; sick leave is six weeks' worth of working days over a 36-month cycle; and qualifying employees get three days' paid family responsibility leave per leave cycle. Here is how each works.
Training and capability
The 2025 Code of Good Practice: Dismissal expects a probation period set in advance and of reasonable length, reasonable guidance, and representations before you extend or dismiss. Probation disputes go to compulsory con-arb.
People operations and HR outsourcing
Capacity is a no-fault ground for dismissal. Under the 2025 Code of Good Practice: Dismissal, poor performance needs evaluation, support, a reasonable time to improve and a chance to respond, and ill health needs an investigation and a genuine search for alternatives.
Fifteen further pieces planned between late October and December 2026. Dates are targets.
A CCMA date in the diary?Send us the referral today. We assess every matter within 48 hours and tell you plainly where you stand.
