Rising temperatures caused by climate change increase the risk of heat stress for employees. In South Africa, heat exposure is expected to be the most common climate impact on occupational health and safety (OHS), and it requires an urgent and targeted legislative response. While the Climate Change Act 22 of 2024 promotes a coordinated and cooperative legal response to climate adaptation, its interaction with labour legislation in advancing adaptation objectives remains to be seen, as the Act is yet to be fully implemented. This article highlights that existing labour legislation offers insufficient protection against climate-related heat stress risks in the workplace, and that the fragmented legislative framework hampers climate adaptation. This is illustrated through a discussion of the legislative regulation of heat stress risks by the Occupational Health and Safety Act 85 of 1993 and the Physical Agents Regulations, which were introduced in 2025. OHS measures interact with minimum employment conditions under the Basic Conditions of Employment Act 75 of 1997, and regulatory examples from Spain offer guidance for reform in the context of extreme heat. The article also suggests that collective bargaining under the Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995 offers a valuable supplementary response to protect the heat health of employees. Drawing on OHS guidance by the International Labour Organization and the experience of Australia, the article argues that climate-responsive regulations under OHS legislation are required to respond to climate impacts. Such regulations would better integrate the above labour legislation with climate adaptation measures that protect employees against increasing heat stress risks.
This article undertakes an analysis of the prospects for global labour law from the perspective of long-run capitalist dynamics associated with phases of industrialisation. The article argues that Britain’s early industrialisation owed much to legal institutions, including the poor law and factory legislation, which supported labour mobility and improvements in productivity. Labour standards constructed around this model achieved a global reach by the middle decades of the twentieth century. Although weakened during the period of neoliberal policy dominance which began in Europe and North America in the 1980s, these institutions have proved surprisingly resilient, and have been strengthened in certain regions. If neoliberalism is ending, and it is not yet clear what will replace it, it is possible to predict that labour law will continue to have a future in mediating the impacts of markets and technology on humans and nature.
The 30th anniversary of the enactment of the Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995 (LRA) provides a useful opportunity for reassessing the dismissal law established by the Act. This article examines the state of dismissal law with reference to three key features: the labour dispute resolution regime created by the LRA; the role of the common law in dismissal matters; and the current legislative location of dismissal based on unfair discrimination. The article also questions the continued validity of some of the modalities in the LRA supporting these features. While concluding that there is nothing wrong with the fundamentals of current dismissal law, both in respect of its treatment of substantive and procedural fairness, and in respect of the dispute resolution model that supports it, the article argues that the changing nature of employment and the pressures on the dispute resolution institutions created by the LRA require a change to some of the modalities of dismissal law. Taking a long view – 30 years – of dismissal law, the article makes tentative proposals that might make dismissal law more agile and responsive to the changing nature of employment.
The contribution highlights the need for critical reform of the South African social security system, despite significant advances made over the last few decades. The required reforms must be informed by the need for a reconceptualised understanding of the comprehensive social protection objectives to be achieved, a context-sensitive appreciation of the social security risk concept and the associated vulnerabilities underlying the social security response framework, and an enhanced comprehension of work. Incorporating economic and environmental risks in the social security scope would ensure that social security could meaningfully respond to climate change concerns and loss of livelihood support. This would also provide a basis for accommodating those engaged in care work and in the informal economy. Substantive equality considerations, enshrined in both the Constitution and international law, would strengthen the case for including excluded and marginalised categories of persons, including the long-term and structurally unemployed, and help to inform system redesign to better accommodate disadvantaged women. The concerning trend towards new exclusions and limitations in South African social security must be confronted.
An efficient and cost-effective dispute system was a key aim in the drafting of the Labour Relations Act in 1994. In this contribution we consider whether this aim has been achieved. We look separately at the internal disciplinary process, CCMA arbitrations, the labour courts and the Constitutional Court. We include comparative insights from Canada. Looking ahead, we consider possible dispute resolution mechanisms in four diverse areas: AI and mediation, platform workers, workers in the informal economy, and supply chain disputes. Through this review we make suggestions for the way forward.
Reflecting on the 30 years since the Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995 (LRA) was passed in South Africa raises important questions about the progress made in promoting fair labour practices, and the challenges that remain. The creation of the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration was a key achievement in making workplace relations more democratic, and providing accessible conflict resolution for both workers and employers. However, with the rapid advancements in technology, particularly the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), the following question arises: are current labour laws adapting to these swift changes? This contribution highlights some of the successes and ongoing difficulties of the LRA, by examining its role in regulating employment relations and raising critical issues: Are workers sufficiently protected in an age of automation? How might innovative approaches, such as online dispute resolution, enhance access to justice? Furthermore, how can South Africa’s labour framework remain robust and inclusive amidst technological disruptions? The conclusion is that the vision for the future should be one that balances the potential of AI with the essential need to protect workers’ rights in an ever-evolving economic landscape.
This article critically examines affirmative action in South Africa, tracing its constitutional and legislative development, judicial interpretation and practical challenges, with comparative insights from India and Malaysia. It highlights the evolution from the cautious, flexible approach in Van Heerden to the restrictive framework in SAPS v Solidarity obo Barnard, which prioritises valid Employment Equity Plans (EEPs) and narrowly limits challenges to the implementation of remedial measures. Post-Barnard jurisprudence confirms that affirmative action measures are unlawful only where EEPs are deficient, misapplied or regionally misaligned, particularly when numerical targets function as rigid quotas. The 2023 Employment Equity Amendment Act and the 2025 sectoral targets introduce ambitious transformation goals; however, their implementation is constrained by the limited availability of suitably skilled candidates from designated groups. A comparison of South Africa’s decentralised sector-wide approach with India’s structured reservation system and Malaysia’s public-sector quotas reveals the need to align affirmative action with labour market realities, educational pipelines and economic policy. The article concludes that substantive workplace transformation cannot rely solely on quotas or targets. Instead, a holistic, multi-dimensional strategy is required – integrating legislative enforcement with targeted social, educational and economic interventions – to effectively redress historic disadvantage and achieve meaningful equality.
The ILO’s Committee on Freedom of Association has developed jurisprudence that extends the right to freedom of association to ‘all workers without any distinction whatsoever’. Section 23 of the Constitution enshrines the collective labour rights of ‘every worker’. Yet, the Labour Relations Act (LRA) excludes workers in informal employment, who comprise over a third of South Africa’s workforce. Written as a thought piece, and placing domestic workers (who de facto are informally employed) and street vendors (who de iure work informally) at the centre, this article reimagines the LRA to account for the realities of workers in the informal economy: their workplaces (including private homes and public space); multiple employers (in the case of domestic workers) or no employer (in the case of street vendors); and in the case of workers who work in the public space, the central role of local government in determining access to the workplace and conditions of work. Drawing on three theoretical frameworks – Freedland and Kontouris’ ‘personal work relations’, Hepple’s typology of the functions of labour law, and power resources theory – the paper explores how the right to freedom of association, collective bargaining and the right to strike might be realised for the two occupational groups, and outlines the legislative reforms that would be needed.
This article examines how the common law regulating employment has developed over the past three decades. It reflects on the most significant cases dealing with contracts of employment during that period and how the law has evolved through those cases. While our common law of employment remains closely linked to Roman-Dutch law, the impact of the introduction of statutory protection for employees and the judicial interpretation of the scope and application of employment statutes has, somewhat surprisingly perhaps, rendered the common law less flexible than the system that Roman lawyers devised in a very different context. The article assesses whether the common law has the tools that it needs to respond to a rapidly changing world of work, and examines how employment statutes have, in effect, operated to tether the common law and have been interpreted in a manner that inhibits further development of the common law. Looking forward, the article assesses what changes in statutory regulation may be necessary or most effective to ensure that constitutionally supported employment protections and minimum standards, which broadly reflect twentieth century global consensus, remain relevant in the future, in the world in which South African citizens are most likely to find themselves working over the next three decades. The article identifies a significant disjuncture between current legal regulation and the reality of evolving working relationships under an increasingly wide variety of contracts and forms of work. Global instruments regulating the world of work are in a state of rapidly evolving transition. The article suggests that the South African legislature needs to follow suit, or it may find activist judges stepping in to fill the void.
The legal and economic world for which labour law was traditionally designed has largely disappeared in the twenty-first century. Although the goals and purposes of labour law have not changed, it is in danger of becoming obsolete for most working people as employment, work and workplaces have undergone fundamental shifts. This contribution considers the changes that have occurred in the world of work and their impact on labour law and regulation by asking what status employment or work should carry in the future to improve the dignity, rights and autonomy of those who need them most. In considering the past and present iterations of employment (and labour law), while considering future adaptation, the following aspects are considered: the changing nature and scope of employment, collective rights and related concepts, the implications of such changes, emerging collaboration between different fields of law and policy, and recommendations for regulation to ensure the continued influence of labour law and its associated legal constructs (such as ‘work’).
Any retrospective assessment of the Labour Relations Act (LRA) must necessarily determine whether the Act has succeeded in meeting its stated objectives, which are the advancement of economic development, social justice, labour peace and the democratisation of the workplace. This article traces the history of the LRA, the draft Bill that formed the basis of its negotiation, and the consensus that emerged from that tripartite process. The article concludes that the LRA has failed to meet its stated objectives, largely on account of its users’ rejection of those parts of the Act that sought to supplement the prevailing adversarial nature of industrial relations with a consensus-seeking, consultative ‘second channel’. The rejection of those provisions invites a consideration of different means to achieve the LRA’s stated objectives. A reconsideration of the LRA is also warranted by assumptions made when the LRA was drafted 30 years ago that are no longer valid. In particular, the corporatist assumptions that inform the model of collective bargaining no longer pertain, nor does the conception of work, tied as it is to the common-law contract of employment. Fragmented trade union federations and employers’ organisations, persistent adversarialism, the emergence of new forms of work and a dispute resolution system under stress all call for a re-evaluation of key elements of the LRA. The LRA failed to meet the challenges of democratic South Africa’s entry into a competitive global economy, even though it was designed to do so. The question is whether the Act remains fit for purpose to meet the current challenges of a fragile domestic economy in an increasingly polarised world.
The Constitution guarantees workers the right to strike. Workers use strike action as a bargaining tool when employers fail to meet their demands or address their grievances in the workplace. The right to strike and the strike itself have helped workers to achieve various things in the workplace, including improved working conditions and increased wages. Exercising the right to strike has resulted in not only positive acts that benefit workers, but also in the loss of employment through retrenchments due to protracted strikes; in addition, many workers have lost their lives due to strikes becoming violent. The struggle to liberate workers from the shackles of poverty, inequality, the ever-increasing rate of unemployment and differences in pay continues. This means that the weaponry of strike action is still necessary if South Africa wants to address the plight of workers. This article examines whether the law relating to strikes in the next 30 years will still be relevant in the labour relations environment in South Africa. I argue that strikes are becoming less popular, and very few workers or employees will continue to use them due to changes in the way that business is conducted. This is further affected by the increasing use of technology, including the introduction of gig work and apps to perform work. In addition, trade unions usually convene strikes and recruit people who are in formal employment; however, by 2055, the number of people joining unions will have decreased as few people will be in formal employment. Workers will mostly rely on the internet to voice their grievances against employers, and the latter, fearing reputational damage, may succumb to employee demands. This will have the same outcome as if workers were to go on strike. The result will be a situation where an individual worker and their employer will decide on their terms and conditions of work. The employer alone will decide on wage increases or other matters affecting workers, because collective bargaining will play a less important role.
This article provides an overview of the significant changes in the power dynamic between athletes and governing bodies and how these changes impact the contracting of professional athletes in South Africa, specifically in rugby and cricket. The article examines the initial embracing of standard employment law contracting models in professional team sport and how these are being replaced by atypical employment relationships and free agency, at the instance of the athletes. This change has occurred at a time when South African professional teams have enjoyed unparalleled success, making it possible to argue that success for a business entity may be achievable without there being employment contracts in place with the key individuals responsible for that success.
The independent trade union movement that emerged from the 1973 Durban strikes developed legal strategies to protect their members, who were primarily African workers excluded from participation under the Industrial Conciliation Act 28 of 1956. Chief among these strategies was the institution of litigation seeking to nullify dismissals that violated statutory victimisation provisions in those laws that covered African workers. The apartheid-era bench was largely hostile to this approach, and it was not until the 1982 full bench decision in National Union of Textile Workers v Stag Packings that orders of nullity and reinstatement became a possibility. However, by this time the powers of the industrial court, which had been established in 1980, had been extended to include status quo orders and the unions were able to achieve unprecedented protection for their members as the industrial court asserted its unfair labour practice powers. This article explores the legal strategies reflected in the litigation and engaged scholarly writing that gave rise to this important judgment and comments on its significance for contemporary labour law in South Africa.
This contribution is a tribute to Halton Cheadle’s work over the years, particularly his significant contribution to labour legislation and policy development and the enhancement of the role of international labour standards (ILS) in the SADC sub-region and elsewhere in Africa. Ever since the establishment of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) more than a hundred years ago, ILS has been a persuasive instrument in the search for universal democratic governance norms worldwide. Nowhere has that influence and impact been as visible as in developing countries. The impact of ILS in Southern Africa has been profound, not only in the struggle against racial discrimination, for instance in Zimbabwe and South Africa, but also in fostering labour rights through what was later designated as ‘decent work’. In more recent years, the promotion of ILS has been extended through the reform of labour legislation and policy. Cheadle has been deeply involved in the work of labour law reform, starting with South Africa in 1994, efforts that culminated in the current Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995, and then other African countries, such as Nigeria and Tanzania. His contribution continued when he served as a member of the ILO Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations (CEACR). In an era that can be characterised as one of ‘global polycrisis’, the importance of ILS as a well-tested yardstick, renewed to address the challenges of a rapidly changing world of work, has become greater than ever before. This article will examine and analyse selected areas related to democratic governance developments.
The obligation to follow a fair procedure before dismissing an employee for misconduct, certainly in the private sector, has its origins in the concept of the unfair labour practice, introduced in 1979 by way of an amendment to the Labour Relations Act 28 of 1956. This article traces the history of the development of a right to fair procedure before a decision to dismiss, and attempts to identify the normative basis of and justifications for that right. These included international standards, comparative law, the principles of administrative law applicable to public sector employees, and employer best practice. By 1994, a ‘criminal justice’ model had evolved, in which pre-dismissal procedures were equated with procedures applied in a criminal court. The Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995 (in particular, the Code of Good Practice: Dismissal) attempted to reduce the cost of elaborate workplace procedures. The legislative package introduced a system of compulsory arbitration for disputed dismissals, with a primary remedy of reinstatement for dismissals found to be substantively unfair, and compensatory awards for dismissals found to be substantively fair, but procedurally unfair. This approach reflects both respect for the autonomy and dignity of the employee, and a justification based on maximising the general welfare. The general welfare is maximised by accommodating the diversity and flexibility of procedural standards, promoting rational decision-making in disciplinary matters, and eliminating the cost of duplicated processes. The Code thus ultimately seeks to combine the normative ideals of worker protection with the achievement of productive efficiency.
The constitutional democratic order has been in place in South Africa for 30 years. During this period the Constitutional Court has established both its authority at the apex of the administration of justice and its legitimacy as the final arbiter of the lawfulness of the exercise of public power in all its manifestations. During its life, the Constitutional Court appears to have been guided in its approach to litigation before it by diverse concerns, often linked to strong personalities within its ranks and the prevailing socio-political context. It is difficult, however, to divine an overarching theory of adjudication to animate its jurisprudence. Such guidance can be discerned by attempts to ‘periodise’ the output of the Constitutional Court, as was attempted by Issacharoff in 2009. The courts have also been criticised and attacked in the public domain by party politicians who seek to divert attention from their unconstitutional conduct to scapegoat the judiciary; this is often accompanied by scandalous assaults on the constitutional order itself. Absent a unifying theory of adjudication in line with the transformative constitutional values at its core, we argue in this article that the Constitutional Court appears vulnerable to such unscrupulous undermining and is insufficiently able to defend itself and so retain public confidence in its stature, independence and fierce impartiality. Through an analysis of key judgments over the past fifteen years in particular, we seek to identify and propose the key elements of such a foundational theory of adjudication, applicable also in the vital sphere of extending constitutional prescripts into the private sphere, as contemplated by the Constitution.
Black workers in South Africa in the 1970s fought successfully for their right to be included in the law. Through militant struggles, and with the aid of pioneering lawyers like Halton Cheadle, they produced an inclusive Labour Relations Act (LRA) and the attendant Basic Conditions of Employment Act. Through its independent power base connected to the shopfloor, the labour movement gave trade unions the capacity to mobilise and restrain members, which they used to negotiate to expand legal rights and organisational space and pursue worker control at workplace and industry levels. However, the LRA, and its employer–employee binary, marginalises informal workers, and these workers are now waging a battle for recognition. The struggle for informal workers’ rights unfolds in a more challenging environment than the 1970s, and no significant changes in law have emerged in the last twenty years of organising. This makes redefining the LRA complex, as informal workers may be own account workers and micro-employers. Labour law is not responsive to the needs of workers in the informal economy and an experimental environment is encouraged. The world of work has changed to such an extent that perhaps we now need the equivalent of the Wiehahn Commission, which transformed the world of labour in the 1980s.
For unions worldwide, winning the right and space to engage in collective bargaining, so empowering them to forge a better deal for their members, has been a central goal for over a century. Bound up with that process has been the pursuit of a right and capacity to strike. Consultation is a more subtle form of engagement, one that has attracted less attention and resources. However, once the raw battles over union recognition and basic employee protections and rewards have been played out, influence in the workplace begins to matter as much as power. A sophisticated framework for consultation affords employees considerable latitude to shape their workplaces even as employers gain from a more fruitful engagement with their workforce. This article examines how different legal systems deal with the often intertwined processes of bargaining and consultation, contrasting some European, Japanese and Anglosphere track records. It also compares in closer detail the South African and Australian experiences, advocating a heightened role for consultation in workplace affairs.
This article examines the role of ILO technical assistance in lawmaking and labour law reform, focusing on assistance provided in Lesotho prior to enactment of the Labour Act of 2024. ILO technical assistance often involves the use of external experts with significant influence over the development of domestic labour laws, raising questions about integrity and inclusivity in the law-making process. Drawing on our involvement in Lesotho’s labour law reform efforts between 2014 and 2024, the article considers key aspects of ILO assistance in the country’s unique socio-economic context. It highlights the importance of ensuring that labour laws are not only technically compliant with ILO conventions, but are also shaped by the deliberations of domestic stakeholders and are socially relevant and responsive to local employment and economic realities.
