Have you ever had an employee who simply didn’t come to work for a week? I don’t mean an employee who takes off the odd day here and there because “he’s not feeling well”, but someone who’s at work the one day and then doesn’t arrive again. Judging by the questions I get, this is a problem a number of you have faced. The question is: how do you deal with it? You can’t simply fire him because he could come back and you’d lose at the CCMA.

I hope your short week has been productive...I know it’s great having a day off (or quite a few in April), but I do find it leaves me scrabbling for time to do everything I need to. It’s times like this that we can drop the ball on important issues. Stress and time pressure take their toll and this can mean someone else is left to pick up the pieces. When it comes to employee mistakes...this normally means an expensive labour lawyer!

Wow – it’s been a busy week in the world of labour law. The debate on labour brokers rages on, with the Minister of Labour backing off on his “ban the labour brokers” stance. An employer stands accused of breaching health and safety regulations, which possibly led to the death of 13 employees. SAMU has ruled out strike action, for now!

Tracy King is normally ‘behind the scenes’ in our department, but I think, with her knowledge of labour law (and her ability to keep her finger on the pulse of things), she’s the perfect editor for the Labour Watch newsletter. And so, she takes over from the next issue, heading up our team of experts on the Labour Team.

I’m well aware the country’s road to prepare for 2010 has been a rocky one...not least because of the effort to build world-class stadiums. We’ve heard a number of stories over the years about delays to the construction of these stadiums, mostly because of strikes. These have caused setbacks and probably cost the companies huge amounts of money. Would you know what to do if your staff went on strike?

Picture this scenario...The economy’s in a shambles, your previously very-profitable business has taken a HUGE knock, you’ve tried everything to keep your head above water...but the only option you have now is to retrench 17 employees.
You consult with them and go ahead with the retrenchment. You’re confident you’ve followed the proper procedure, but they refer an unfair dismissal dispute to the CCMA...you know they should’ve gone straight to the Labour Court...but...