Barney Jordaan

Can lapsed warnings be taken into account when an employee faces disciplinary action?

Dealing with alcohol and drug abuse in the workplace is not easy. At the one extreme you might have a driver who drinks heavily on a particular occasion while on duty, and then drives and crashes a company vehicle while under the influence of alcohol. At the other extreme, you might have a clerk who occasionally smells of alcohol at the workplace, but approaches the employer of his own free will for assistance with alcohol dependency. While these situations clearly require different approaches, there could be a number of situations in between that each requires a slightly different approach.

Just before she has to attend a disciplinary hearing, your employee submits a medical certificate stating that she is unable to attend the hearing because of some undisclosed illness. What should you do?

Employees are not necessarily the only ones to blame for the abuse of sick leave in South African workplaces. It is a known fact that some doctors earn an easy fee by issuing medical certificates without examining the employee. Most employers assume that they simply have to accept medical certificates at face value.

May an employee withdraw a notice of termination and must the employer accept the withdrawal? And is there a distinction between desertion and resignation without proper notice?

In a society with diverse religious beliefs employers are challenged not only to be tolerant, but also to accommodate that diversity in the workplace. To what extent must religious beliefs and practices of employees be accommodated?

Finally we have clarity about the nature of the forthcoming amendments to the LRA and BCEA.

Our law does not provide for a national or general age at which employees have to, or may retire. Contracts of employment may of course contain an agreed retirement age, in which case the employer may ask the employee to leave employment once he or she has reached the...

The recently proposed amendments to the Employment Equity Act (‘EEA’) created much discussion and concern. The concern arose from both the substance of some of the proposals and the poor manner in which they were drafted. For now it would appear that the proposed changes (as well as proposed changes to the LRA and the BCEA) will not be passed in law in their current form. We are likely to see, at some point in the not too distant future, better considered and drafted proposals for change.

Employers engage temporary employment services (‘TES’ or ‘labour brokers’) for various reasons, one being the relative ease with which under-performing or misbehaving placements can be replaced. Unless there is a contractual provision between the client and the TES,...

Complying with the Employment Equity Act (EEA) is not merely a mechanical process. There are indeed some procedural requirements, but in assessing compliance consideration must be given to whether ‘sufficient progress’ has been made with the …

When an employee is imprisoned for having committed a crime, there could be more than one reason why the employer might want to terminate employment. The employer might feel that the nature of the crime is such that the employee has become unsuitable as an employee,...

In Shoprite Checkers (Pty) Ltd v CCMA & Others the LAC held essentially that theft should be treated like all other forms of misconduct and that mitigating factors must also be taken into account.

Retrenching employees has been regarded as a relatively straight-forward process. However, recent judgements have shown that the requirement of fairness stretches beyond the text of legislation.

Managing a situation involving an ‘invisible’ illness, e.g. depression, can be challenging, as the employer in Marsland v New Way Motor & Diesel discovered.

What does one do with whistleblowers who refuse to testify in a disciplinary hearing because they fear intimidation?

The sensitive issue of the use of labour broking services has once again been raised after a recent finding of the High Court of Namibia. What are the implications for employers in South Africa?

While it is generally recognised that the decision not to promote is the employer’s prerogative, employers often don’t realise that the failure to promote may amount to an unfair labour practice.

Can an employer deduct monies from an employee’s salary if the employee fails to give proper notice of resignation? Does verbal resignation suffice or should it be in writing? More questions answered.

The unauthorised personal use of company assets by employees is a growing and ongoing problem, and the greatest area of concern is usually the abuse of company telephones. How can this be contained?