The Labour Laws Amendment Bill (LLAB), approved by Cabinet and currently before parliament, represents a major frontal assault on workers’ hard-won rights. It is deepening the neoliberal restructuring of the labour market. The trade union bureaucracy participated in the negotiations on the LLAB at Nedlac without the involvement or mandate of the working class. It also excluded the millions of workers who are not part of unions, especially precarious workers.
The consolidation of the neoliberal labour market
Attacking the legal protection against unfair dismissal
There are several amendments that undermine the current legal protection against unfair dismissals:
- During the first 3 months of employment, workers can be dismissed without a valid reason and without a formal disciplinary hearing.
- The requirement to hold formal disciplinary hearings has gone. Workers only have to have a fair procedure. This could take the form of a “dialogue”.
- Incapacity is broadened to include incompatibility, which can be a ground for dismissal.
- Workers cannot apply for an urgent court order to stop unfair retrenchment procedures. They can only challenge unfair retrenchment procedures after they are retrenched/dismissed, which could take years.
The sponsors of the proposed amendments say that to create jobs and grow the economy, workers’ rights must be taken away. The result is that work will become more precarious and insecure.
Cheapening Labour
Wage agreements negotiated in Bargaining Councils will no longer be binding on an employer of a new business that employs less than 50 employees. In the engineering industry, this will reduce the minimum wage from R66.93 per hour to R30.23 per hour. It also undermines collective bargaining, and specifically, industry bargaining.
Codifying casualisation
Zero-hour contracts: this is one of the most damaging forms of precarious employment. A worker must be available for work, but is not guaranteed any hours of work. They are at the beck and call of capital, and their livelihoods depend on the dictates of the market.
The sponsors of the amendment argue that incorporated zero-hours contracts into the legal framework will protect these workers from exploitation and abuse. However, there is no effective provision for guaranteed hours. Employers must specify guaranteed hours in a contract, but the LRAB does not include any minimum number. And the employer has the right to cancel hours of work provided proper notice is given.
Gig workers: the drafters claim they are extending rights to workers who are not currently defined as employees—the so-called ‘independent contractors’ in the gig or platform economy, such as Uber drivers and scooter delivery workers.
The drafters claim they are extending rights to workers who are not currently defined as employees—the so-called ‘independent contractors’ in the gig or platform economy, but they are not protected against unfair dismissals for misconduct, incapacity or retrenchments. (Image generated by AI).
It is true that the LLAB defines these workers as employees. However, they only have certain rights: to form or join trade unions, to engage in collective bargaining, and to strike. They are also protected against some “automatically unfair dismissals”. However, they are not protected against other unfair dismissals. So, if an Uber delivery worker is pregnant, her services can be terminated, and she will have no protection. They are also not protected against unfair dismissals for misconduct, incapacity or retrenchments.
This will be wielded as a deterrent against workers who want to form or join unions. In the context of widespread unemployment and poverty, workers are concerned about job security.
Attacking other workers’ rights
Section 77 of the LRA is amended. At the moment, a union or a federation can get a certificate from Nedlac to call a socio-economic protest strike. The certificate lasts indefinitely. The amendment says that the certificate lapses after 24 months. After that, there must be a new application. It can take months, even years, to obtain a certificate because of the cumbersome bureaucratic processes of Nedlac.
Higher-paid employees (over R1.8m per year) are not able to seek reinstatement or re-employment for an unfair dismissal case (unless it’s an automatically unfair dismissal). They are only entitled to compensation, limited to an amount determined by the Minister, currently set at R1,800 000 per annum.
Limited concessions
In exchange for the deepening of labour flexibility and the erosion of workers’ rights, the LRAB offers:
Improvements in severance pay, but with a catch
The minimum severance pay for retrenchment is increased from one week to two weeks for each completed year of service. However, this only applies to the future, not the past. Only years completed after the Act is passed will count. So older workers are not going to benefit.
Automatically unfair dismissal referred to arbitration, but only some
Automatically unfair cases for exercising of rights, pregnancy and unfair discrimination can be referred to either the CCMA/Bargaining Council for arbitration or the Labour Court. However, other automatically unfair dismissals must continue to be referred to the Labour Court. These include dismissals for: participation in or support for a protected strike; refusal to perform the work of a striking employee; joining a trade union; exercising rights; refusing to accept an employer’s mutual interest demand; and making a protected disclosure.
Secret ballot for closed shop agreements
A trade union is required to conduct a secret ballot of workers covered by a closed shop agreement when:
- One third of the employees request the secret ballot, or
- Three years have elapsed since the closed shop agreement was signed or the last ballot was conducted.
If no secret ballot has been conducted after three years, the agreement automatically lapses.
This is one of a handful of amendments that represent a positive advance for workers. The amendment wants to ensure that unions with closed shop agreements still represent the majority of workers. However, not many workers are part of closed shop agreements.
Amendment to the National Minimum Wage Act
This is another positive concession. It says that a worker’s wage in terms of the national minimum wage excludes deferred payments such as contractual bonuses and provident fund contributions. This is to rectify a judgment made by a Labour Appeal Court that included deferred payments in the calculation.
Though the amendment is positive, it merely reasserts the initial understanding of the law.
Changes to parental leave and benefits
In 2025, the Constitutional Court said men must not be discriminated against with parental leave and benefits. So, according to this amendment:
A worker (whether a man or woman) who is the only employed partner in the parental relationship, and who contributes to UIF, is entitled to take at least four consecutive months of parental leave.
If both parents are employed and contribute to the UIF, then they are collectively entitled to four months and ten days parental leave. They can agree to divide this between them.
However, these changes will not assist in the struggle against GBV or for gender equality. Patriarchy is still firmly entrenched, and men are not yet socialised to deal with parental responsibilities. And four months’ leave at 60% of earnings is not enough. But women are now expected to share this. Equalisation of parental care between the partners is coming at the expense of women.
Institutional changes
Expanding the functions of the CCMA
The CCMA will be able to assist a worker to enforce an arbitration award, including instructing and paying the fees of the Sheriff. It will also be able to regulate procedures more clearly, including con-arb processes, facilitation in large-scale retrenchments, compliance orders, and wage claims under the National Minimum Wage Act.
However, this expansion of the CCMA’s functions comes on the back of budget cuts. The result is long delays in the processing of disputes and a tendency to shift conciliations and arbitration online to the disadvantage of workers, especially workers in precarious forms of employment.
Meanwhile, the CCMA has become extremely conservative and pro-capital. Many of the commissioners now come from the business world. Others come from universities and are blind supporters of free-market ideology. Commissioners with a trade union background are from a labour movement that is highly institutionalised, bureaucratic and embedded in capitalism.
The politics of the amendments
These amendments are saying that economic development will take place once bosses have unhindered freedom to hire and fire workers. They are blaming workers for the stagnant economic growth. By doing this, they want to hide the real cause of unemployment and poverty—capitalism, and more specifically, monopoly capitalism. The small minority that owns and controls the South African economy appropriates the wealth created through the labour and sweat of workers. They are now sitting on this wealth and refusing to invest and create jobs.
They want to politically divide the employed workers and the unemployed, and also the employed from the middle class, especially small business owners. Their message is: it is the workers who are the problem. They have too many rights and are earning too much.
The Campaign to Scrap the Labour Law Amendments is calling for the scrapping of the LLAB and for a complete rewriting of all labour laws in the interest of the working class, both the employed and the unemployed.
