Month: <span>November 2017</span>

Court News

HR City opposes Labour Legislation Law Amendments

Again HR City has elected to voice our concern over proposed amendments to labour legislation, including the implementation of the proposed Minimum Wage Bill (Read our Article Here).

Similarly to our actions in 2012 when HR City sought to intervene in what it viewed as dangerous and unfair changes to labour legislation (Read our Article Here) government has again sought to further restrict the rights of employers, even during an economic downturn which, in no small part is due to excessive over-regulation of the labour market.  Read more “HR City opposes Labour Legislation Law Amendments” →

CoalStrike News

Strike Looming in the Coal Sector

Over the past few months employers and employees in the coal sector have been negotiating wage increases in the Coal Sector. Employees, represented by the NUM, Solidarity, UASA and NUMSA have reached a deadlock with the represented employers, Exxaro Coal, Anglo American Coal, Glencore, Koornfontein, Kangra, Delmas Coal and Msobo Coal which may well result in a strike occurring across the entire sector.

Says Mr Peter Bailey, NUM Chief Negotiator in the Coal Sector in a press statement: “The Chamber of Mines members are pleading poverty when it comes to black workers yet white managers and executives have the luxury of being overcompensated.” Read more “Strike Looming in the Coal Sector” →

Minimum-Wage News

National Minimum Wage Legislation gets a nod from Cabinet

Cabinet has approved the draft legislation to implement a National Minimum Wage for South Africa. At present the new proposed National Minimum Wage is set at R 20.00 per hour, which translates to approximately R 3 900.00 per month. For a comparison, the current Minimum Wage for a Domestic Worker is around R 12.42 per hour or R 2 421.90 per month.

While it is unclear what the exemptions would be, working on the assumption that all Sectoral Minimum Wages will have to be increased, this legislation holds the potential to increase unemployment even more. Currently South Africa has an unemployment rate of 27.7% for the third quarter of 2017 and in what is likely to be a repeat of the Farm Workers Minimum Wage which saw a 0.8% increase in unemployment when it was implemented in 2013 over a period which historically shows a decrease in unemployment. Read more “National Minimum Wage Legislation gets a nod from Cabinet” →

WhoIsEmployee Article

When is an Independent Contractor actually an Employee?

Given the tough economic climate and the relatively high cost of employment, workforce flexibility becomes one of the most important considerations for any business. This is actively hampered by restrictive legislation which regulates Fixed-term and Temporary Employment and effectively makes it impossible for an employer to structure its’ business to make use of this form of employment.

An emerging trend has been the use of independent contractors, however this is not as simple as it seems. Section 200A of the Labour Relations Act (Act 66 of 1995), Assumption as to who is an Employee, sought to answer this question to a certain extent, and when read along with the Code of Good Practice, seems to favor a combination of tests, including the Read more “When is an Independent Contractor actually an Employee?” →