RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN S.A. EMPLOYMENT LAW

Date of Judgment & Seat of Court: 6 November 2026, Labour Court, Cape Town Case No: 2026/232698 Name of Judge(s): May AJ Summary of Factual Matrix: Following the Premier Group's acquisition of RFG Holdings and the section 197 transfer of RFG Foods' employees to the second respondent, the second respondent issued section 189(3) notices, read with section 189A, in respect of its Tulbagh fruit products operation and requested CCMA facilitation. Over four facilitation meetings the consulting parties, including the applicant union, negotiated voluntary severance packages (VSPs); all but one of the applicant's 107 members, and virtually all other affected employees, signed VSPs. The applicant brought an urgent application for a rule nisi declaring the retrenchment process unfair, halting the VSPs, allowing members who had signed them to return to work, and interdicting the implementation of the section 189 process. It contended that the second respondent had failed to enga...

Date of Judgment & Seat of Court: 5 November 2026, Labour Court, Cape Town Case No: C363/2024 Name of Judge(s): Lagrange J Summary of Factual Matrix: Mr Douse, a Senior Superintendent in the municipality's Parks Division with service since 2005, had not taken up his redesignated placement at Bergoord despite instructions from the Municipal Manager. On 3 May 2023 the Municipal Manager excluded him from a departmental meeting and instructed him to return to his workstation; Douse instead entered the office afterwards and confronted the Municipal Manager, invoking a former municipal manager who had been dismissed and warning him that he would see what would happen to him. Douse then lodged a grievance alleging that the Municipal Manager had assaulted him by pushing him. He was charged with dishonesty, intimidation and gross insubordination, and was dismissed. The SALGBC arbitrator found the dismissal substantively and procedurally fair, holding that there had at most been a gen...

Date of Judgment & Seat of Court: 30 October 2026, Labour Court, Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth) Case No: PR237/23 Name of Judge(s): Kroon AJ Summary of Factual Matrix: The applicant municipality, in severe financial distress and subject to national intervention under section 139 of the Constitution, applied to the South African Local Government Bargaining Council for a partial exemption from clauses 6.6 and 6.7 of the three-year Salary and Wage Collective Agreement, so as to avoid paying the 5.4% across-the-board increase due in the third year. It attributed its predicament to historical maladministration, including an allegedly incorrect categorisation and grading of the municipality that inflated its payroll, and relied on the replacement of its council and management. The panellist refused the exemption and, in paragraph 78 of her ruling, further ordered the municipality to review and adjust its budget so as to prioritise the increases. The municipality sought to review and set as...

Date of Judgment & Seat of Court: 25 August 2026, Labour Appeal Court Case No: A2026/085560 Name of Judge(s): Van Niekerk JA (Nkutha-Nkontwana JA and Moshoana AJA concurring) Summary of Factual Matrix: The first appellant, a sales executive employed by the respondent in the heavy commercial vehicle repair industry, had given restraint, non-solicitation and confidentiality undertakings, the restraint operating for 24 months after termination and clause 9.4 deeming the restraint period extended for the duration of any breach. She resigned, assuring the respondent that she would not compete with it, and on 1 July 2025 joined the second appellant, a direct competitor; shortly before resigning she had emailed customer lists to her personal address. The Labour Court enforced the undertakings, restraining her for twelve months calculated from the date of its order (3 November 2025), and ordered both appellants to pay costs; the costs order against the second appellant was later abandon...