All the public hearings have now been held and it appears that the public have been called upon to comment.  In essence we now have a clear picture as to how in fact the laws are going to be changed and what will be implemented during the first half of next year (2013).

There is some good news for business and this can be outlined as follows:

1.    There will be limitations on the right to strike.  It does appear that the requirement of balloting will be brought into our law and it will take a majority of the Unions members to vote in favour of the strike before a Union can go on strike;

2.    The CCMA will have jurisdiction to hear cases on retrenchment if the company has less than ten employees even if more than one employee has been retrenched (dismissed for operational requirements);

3.    Senior managerial employees earning over a certain threshold will have no access to the Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration and the Bargaining Councils.  It has been mooted that the threshold will be a salary of one million rand per annum.  It is suspected however that this threshold will be much less than that.  We await the ministerial determination on the threshold.  This means that senior employees will now have to pay legal fees to access the adjudication bodies.  This in effect will level the playing fields between employer and employee.

4.    The labour brokers will still be able to practice their trade.  These labour brokers known as temporary employment services will have more administrative tasks but in essence the well established labour brokers will probably get a lot busier in the future.