The bosses and the government have tabled a new Draft Code of Good Practice on Dismissal at NEDLAC, an institution that brings together, government, labour, business and community organisations to discuss socio-economic issues that directly impacts these Acts: Labour Relations (LRA), Basic Conditions of Employment (BCEA), National Minimum Wage. – The new Draft Code was negotiated in secret by the bosses, government and trade union bureaucrats from April 2022 to October 2024 and published for public comment on 22nd March 2025. Union members, shop stewards and union officials were not consulted.
This is the latest serious attempt to cripple the ability of the working class to defend itself against the bosses. The government and the bosses have been on an offensive to reverse the gains achieved during the struggle against apartheid from the very beginning of the democratic era. The working class had played the central role in ushering in democracy to end national oppression of the black majority and capitalist exploitation in the workplace under white minority rule. These repeated attacks are an attempt by the bosses and their executive committee in government to reclaim the workplace dictatorship provided by the apartheid regime that the organised working class had rolled back.
These amendments come on top of:
1. The enforcement of secret ballots for strikes during Ramaphosa’s 2016 ANC presidential campaign.
2. The limitation on picketing to promote strike breaking.
3. The failure to comply with collective bargaining agreements after the 2007 and 2010 public sector strikes to fill all public sector vacancies in 6 months.
4. The abandonment of the Public Service Coordinating Bargaining Council Resolution (PSCBC) 7 of 2008 to provide redress for public servants who suffered pension discrimination under apartheid.
5. The repudiation of PSCBC Resolution 1 of 2018 which provided for a 3-year wage agreement. The government simply cancelled the third leg and workers got zero in 2020.
6. Ignoring the PSCBC resolution that created the Government Employees Medical Scheme (GEMS) by allowing its board to unilaterally increase employee contributions in 2024.
7. Repeated failures by municipalities to pay worker salaries on time.
These attacks stem from SA’s severe capitalist crisis. The 2025 budget and VAT dispute is in reality over where the axe of spending cuts should fall to make the working class pay for the crisis the bosses and government created. They are mimicking the methods of capitalist governments worldwide as the global capitalist crisis enters a qualitatively new stage driven by Trump’s declaration of a global tariff war. Until May 2024, on its own, the ANC had carried out a massive transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. They presented the bill for the crisis of capitalism to the working class. They commenced on binding the organised working class hand-and-foot so the capitalists can loot and plunder without restraint. The Government of National Unity is merely carrying on where the ANC government had left off.
After the 2008 Global Financial Crisis that originated in the US, over 1m lost their jobs in SA. A worse scenario is on the horizon as Trump’s tariff war drives the world economy to an even greater crisis than the global Great Recession of 2007 to 2009. From the effects of which there has still been no recovery. Under Trump 2.0 collective bargaining agreements have been torn up in 8 government agencies so far. His attack dog, Elon Musk, aims to reduce the federal government workforce by between 800 000 and 1.1m. Through a combination of dismissals and tempting workers to accept retrenchment packages, over 100 000 jobs have been slashed already since Trump’s second coming. US workers’ wages have not risen in real terms since 1971. 60% live from pay cheque to pay cheque with 35m living below the poverty line. 1m are homeless and 85m are either medically under insured or not at all in the only industrialised country without universal health care. Far Right Argentinian President Melei has shut down 7 government departments and scrapped collective agreements. He now wants to increase the working day from 8 to 12 hours without overtime. To carry through these attacks the bosses must paralyse the ability of the working class to resist.
This is the rationale for these amendments in SA. The common thread running through them is to change the balance of power in the workplace firmly in favour of the bosses, to weaken workers rights, cripple trade unions and provide the bosses with impunity to violate basic human and democratic rights and thus the re-establishment of an unchecked apartheid-style workplace dictatorship. They want to return to the paradise of apartheid as depicted in the play Asinamali, where a boss could tell a worker simply to “voetsek.”
Their sponsors argue: “the easier it is to fire, the easier it is to hire.” They make this outrageous claim despite the fact that existing laws have not prevented bosses from dismissing workers en masse creating a 42% unemployment bloodbath – 60% amongst youth, the world’s highest. They have been systematically undermining collective bargaining, worsening conditions and weakening trade union rights. Bosses deliberately fail to establish essential service committees to maximise the number of workers prohibited from striking. Business Leadership of SA CEO Busisiwe Mavuso has called for transport sector to be designated an essential service so that workers do not have the right to strike. ANC government ministers have previously made similar calls for the education sector.
Many retail industry workers are permanent temps. The ShopRite CEO, Pieter Engelbrecht earns 991 times more than the lowest-paid employee in an industry where the average lowest-paid worker would need to work for 21 months to earn what an average CEO earns in one day. Wages as a proportion of national income have fallen in all likelihood to below 40% from 55% in 1994. According to the Institute for Economic Justice, wages account for 90.65% of total income inequality. This is why the World Bank has classified SA as the world’s most unequal society.
Breaches of the 2014 LRA amendments compelling employers to appoint workers permanently after 3 months are already widespread. Bosses dismiss workers just before the 3 months expire and re-employ them for another 3 months or not at all. The latest amendments not only bury the 2014 amendments; they legitimise and encourage bosses to break the law at work that other citizens enjoy outside it. They will result in further job losses and cripple trade unions. In reality the bosses and the government want to restore the conditions that existed under apartheid when the bosses were able to exercise a workplace dictatorship to hire and fire at will, and to reduce wages and conditions to slavery.
Their greed and lust for power has increased under their capitalist democracy. Below is a selection of the most blatant of these attacks aimed they claim, to “modernise the labour market” through increased “labour flexibility”:
Unfair Labour Practice
1. The Draft code denies a worker on probation as well a new worker the right not to be unfairly dismissed during the first three months of employment. Thus, a worker on probation is first of all not regarded as a worker and thus denied labour law rights. But even after workers have successfully completed probation and have been appointed permanently, they remain “new” for 3 months and thus unprotected for longer.
2. The Draft furthermore weakens the grounds on which a worker may open a case of unfair labour practice by excluding from it unfair labour practices such as demotion, failure to promote, provide training or benefits. This incentivises bosses to victimise, exploit and deny workers development and career opportunities.
3. At the same time the draft amends and broadens the definition of incapacity. Currently an employer is obliged to identify areas of poor performance and provide remedial measure like additional training including extending probation. If incapacity to perform is the result of injury or illness, the employer is obliged to attempt eg to provide alternative duties. These obligations have been removed from the Draft.
3. Even worse, the definition of incapacity has been expanded to include “incompatibility.” This is entirely up to the boss to define and could be based on personal dislike or applied to a worker considered “troublesome.”
Dismissal
1. The new Draft removes the LRA‘s definition of and guidelines for fair dismissal. This allows the boss to act as he or she pleases, freeing them from ensuring that worker rights are respected.
2. Small businesses are now allowed to dismiss permanent workers without a fair hearing. No disciplinary hearing, investigation into misconduct allegations and calling of witnesses are required. Instead, the boss can simply have a “dialogue” with the worker before dismissal. This encourages and legalises victimisation. Unlike the existing Code, which defines a small business as one with 50 or less employees, the Draft Code does not define what it is. This enables a company to claim it is a small business to dismiss workers at will.
3. Bosses can now extend a workers probation period unilaterally or terminate it without a performance assessment. This allows the bosses to in effect do as they please. Such a worker can therefore be denied permanent appointment and remain on low wages without the rights under the LRA, or BCEA or simply be dismissed without a fair hearing.
4. The new Draft limits the current obligation to adopt disciplinary rules that establish the standard of conduct for employees only to medium and larger employers. Small businesses are exempt.
5. The draft Code takes away a worker’s right to refer a dismissal from a pre-arbitration inquiry to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA). It can only be referred to the Labour Court. The CCMA was established to give workers easy and affordable access to labour law. The Labour Court requires lawyers, is costly and out of reach to most workers unless they are unionised. Less than 25% of workers are unionised.
6. To tilt the balance of power more in favour of the boss, there is no reference to a worker’s right to be represented in a pre-dismissal process. It then goes even further by empowering employers to compel workers to include a pre-dismissal process in contracts thus signing away their right to appeal to the CCMA.
7. The draft Code makes no reference to the right of a worker to representation in a pre-dismissal inquiry. The code also removes the obligation of the employer to inform the worker of this right. Thus, a worker is denied the opportunity to respond to eg allegations of unsatisfactory performance. This is a denial of a fundamental right known as audi alterem partem – the right to be heard. It takes away a right that is well established in law. It thus converts the workplace into a labour-law free zone and insulates the bosses from abiding by rights in law all citizens have in criminal and civil cases. It is thus also an attack on trade unions, one of whose core functions is to represent workers in disciplinary cases and grievances.
8. Employers will no longer be legally obliged to reinstate workers earning more than R150 000 a month if they have been dismissed over misconduct or incapacity even if the dismissal is found to be unfair. This sets a dangerous precedent. Providing bosses from immunity from the “rule of law” they worship will encourage them to exercise their power in even more authoritarian ways opening the door to apply to all workers.
In addition to the above, the bosses and their government want to:
1. Exempt bargaining council collective agreements from applying to the industry as a whole in which they are negotiated, for two years if they are newly established and employ less than 50 workers. However, in the steel and engineering industry for example the smaller employer organisations have long been campaigning for exemptions for collective agreements claiming wage increases and improved conditions are unaffordable. This has opened the door for them to achieve this objective
2. Bargaining councils are currently funded by levies paid by employers and workers. The new code limits the power of the Minister for Employment and Labour to extend funding agreements for 3 years. This poses a potential threat to the viability of collective bargaining councils if the employer cites affordability.
3. Although workers and trade unions are now entitled to refer retrenchments that are procedurally and substantially unfair to the Labour Court, it cannot interdict such actions. This is an incentive to employers to precisely retrench unfairly and unprocedurally.
Bosses’ “Voetsek Charter” for a return to the apartheid capitalist workplace jungle must be resisted
This attack on the working class requires a collective and radical response. It affects the entire working class. Workers wages support between 4 and 10. The authoritarian climate in the workplace is already so intolerable for youth that one survey conducted in Zandspruit , near Johannesburg, found that 18% quit their jobs, with 57% not lasting more than a year. This is despite the fact that from ages 18 to 59 there is no social welfare for youth except, if they are lucky to qualify, the insulting R370 Social Relief of Distress Grant the government wants to terminate in 2026. The most common reason was exploitative labour conditions, employers bypassing minimum benefits, withholding pay, making unfair deductions and contracts rarely made permanent. Some felt that no matter how hard they worked, they would never earn enough to improve their lives like establishing a home and supporting a family.
The response and pulse of working class resistance will be fermented in struggle through action at our work places, communities, schools and universities amongst others. To prepare for unity in action it is not only necessary to understand these labour law amendments. We also need to critically examine the weaknesses and shortcoming in the working class. In all the main theatres of struggle – communities, students, workplaces – there is a willingness to struggle, but no unity. The MWP is developing platforms of common demands and programmes of action for all.
The MWP calls upon workers, shop stewards and trade union members to mobilise to resist and defeat these amendments. We must recognise, however, that the bosses have become so emboldened because the trade union leadership failed to act against all previous attacks as explained above. This results from (i) the collaboration of the trade union leadership with the bosses in the workplace and on the political plane such as the Tripartite Alliance (ii) the notion of those unions and federations not in the Tripartite Alliance that the struggle in the workplace and the political struggle are unconnected (ii) the recoil of eg Saftu which asserts that it is “independent but not apolitical” from implementing the Declaration to form a workers party on a socialist programme adopted at the 2018 Working class summit by 1000 delegates representing 147 communities youth and trade unions (iii) the political divisions sown in the working class by the now defunct Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party launched in an act of political strike breaking by the corrupt SACP 2.0 faction now dominating Numsa and (iv) the failure of Amcu’s Labour Party to initiate and champion workers unity and initiating a united front in the workplace and on the political plane.
Restore worker control in unions
The working class is facing a coordinated assault on all fronts: social spending cuts, freezing of education, health social services posts, electricity water tariff increases, the rising cost of living from food, transport and interest rates increases, unaffordable student accommodation and fees. That the class struggle is political was understood under apartheid. Resistance against these attacks is widespread but lack coordination and unity. The working class must reassert the leading role today they played in the struggle against apartheid. Capitalist democracy means that the protection the bosses enjoyed under apartheid is now provided by a democratically elected government.
Resisting the labour law amendments will require, strong coordinated action amongst the different trade union federations. Combined, trade union federations and non-aligned unions are 3,8m strong – 29% of the total workforce. This represents potentially the most powerful social force in SA. To enable the unions to fulfil their potential, the rank-and-file will have to renovate them to reassert the traditions of worker control. It is a disgrace that union bureaucrats were part of these secret labour law amendment negotiations or were privy to them without a mandate of or oversight by the membership. In recent decades, a shift toward bureaucratic and sometimes autocratic leadership in many unions has subverted this legacy. Instead of serving as active representatives engaging directly with their members, some union leaders have become gatekeepers—sometimes failing to fully channel the concerns and aspirations of the workforce. This disconnect is hindering effective negotiations and leave workers sidelined in strategic discussions.
To restore the original traditions of worker control, transparency and accountability, all officials at all levels, shop stewards, local, regional, provincial and national office bearers must be elected (i) subject to immediate recall; (ii) paid salaries based on the average of a skilled worker; (iii) worker control of investment companies – no investment in any industries; (iv) conversion of investment funds into strike funds; (v) regular workplace meetings or feedback and mandates; (vi) training on labour law, handling of grievance and disciplinary matters and negotiations (vii) political education on the history and today’s working class struggle in SA and internationally; (vii) establish joint shop steward councils with unions in other sectors (viii) locals combining community and trade union structures.
A programme for unity in action
The struggle against the labour law amendments provides an opportunity to retie the knot between community, youth, student and worker struggles. Compel union leaders to avail the resources for the production of leaflets, posters, to secure venues and all the resources necessary for public mass meetings and rallies Workers, shop stewards and officials must organise assemblies in working class communities to explain the threat these amendments pose not just for employed workers but the working class as a whole. A common platform of demands on the amendments must be combined with community demands against collapsing service delivery and corruption. Use May Day to unite workers, youth, students and working class communities to prepare a national general strike.
. Mobilise workers, community and youth to reject the labour law amendments in total!
. For united struggle against austerity! Decent jobs for all!
. For a Socialist Trade Union Confederation, s United Socialist Civic Federation, a Marxist Youth and Student Movement and a Socialist Womens Movement
. For mass workers party on a socialist programme
