Coronavirus in South African workplaces: the safety, remuneration, and retrenchment of employees during the lockdown.

Abstract

The sudden and unprecedented spread of coronavirus has left the world, including South Africa, negatively affected. The coronavirus pandemic has been a new experience, and South Africa is faced with questions about whether the existing laws on employment are adequate to manage coronavirus in the workplace, maintain the working relationship between the employer and the employee, and allow the employers to continue to function. The intention of this study is to explore the balance between the right of the employee to safety in the workplace with the interest of the employer in running a profitable business. Existing employment laws guiding employers on protection of employees in the workplace are considered as well as the duty of employees to follow protective measures provided by the employer to protect them against coronavirus. The study interprets the contractual principle of supervening impossibility of performance with regard to the sudden and unexpected onset of the coronavirus and the standard the courts have set in interpreting this principle as a defence. In analysing the principle and the courts’ interpretation on the limits of such a defence, the study concludes that employers remain bound to pay employees full remuneration if they provide their services during the pandemic, but do not have an obligation to pay employees their full remuneration if employees do not work on account of the pandemic. In this instance the pandemic constitutes an intervening impossibility of performance for the employer, and the employer is excused from making payment to an employee who is not working during the pandemic on the plain ground that the employee has not honoured their side of the employment obligation. The study further interprets the Labour Relations Act and case law dealing with retrenchment to establish what procedure the employer can follow in retrenching employees during the pandemic. The analysis reveals that the procedure for retrenching employees based on operational requirements has not changed. However, employers must retrench employees fairly and may not use the pandemic as an excuse to unfairly target or dismiss employees. From the findings of the analysis, the study draws lessons learnt during the pandemic and makes suggestions for developing existing employment laws to be able to address a similar scenario should South Africa face another pandemic in the future.