The amendments to the Labour Relations Act became law as from the 1st January 2015. In essence, this means that employers have to comply with the amendments to the Labour Relations Act from the 1st April 2015 as the act allows them three months in which to get their “house in order”.

There will be lots of litigation arising out of these amendments, which should be good for the labour lawyers and the labour consultants. It will be entirely negative for business and in particular small business.

It looks like some of the unions might also be facing problems in that the legislation now gives the Registrar of Labour Relations in the Department of Labour the power to approach the Labour Court to place a union under administration if that union is suspected of mal administration. Employers will obviously be watching the administration of unions in the future and will be pressurising the Registrar of the Labour Relations Department to investigate many of the union activities.

MICHAEL BAGRAIM