The long hard journey that our legislation has taken is drawing to its end. The BCEA and EEA are gazetted without an implementation date and the LRA and ESB are before the President for signature with an expected implementation date of 1 May unless anything unforeseen occurs.

So, what will the landscape be post the amendments? Clearly the first sad reality is job losses. Throughout the legislative process we, and a number of other experts in the fields of law and economics, warned the Government and Labour Department of the potential job losses the proposed changes would lead to. This was denied throughout the process until October 3rd 2013 when finally the  DOL (Portfolio Committee on labour)  admitted there may be job losses as a result of the labour amendments but they believed these losses could be recovered in the long run.

As we all know, jobs are not made up after they are lost. Notwithstanding all the evidence of job losses, the legislation was still passed by Parliament. So yes there will be a flurry of retrenchments.

Inevitably there will be much more litigation, as these changes ensure easier access to employees and inspectors whilst limiting employers particularly on review.

The 3 month deeming provision and the application of the interpretation will also prove interesting. The opinion contrary to ours has already led to a number of businesses restructuring.

There will be ease of access for trade unions to workplaces and nothing put  in place to restrict strike violence.

There are several more consequences which we will unpack at our countrywide updates and it is important that you get yourself ready for the implementation of the law. Our objective is to find solutions to curtail your cost increases and retain your flexibility.

We are here to help you through this though. We have been involved in the process from the beginning and have the embedded knowledge and strategies to deal with the amendments.

Contact us so that one of our team members can get you through these difficult times. It will be hard but the end result for those that prepare properly will be substantially better than for those who wait for the tide of history to pass them. Join us now and get ready to ride this wave out.

We have included two interesting cases, click here to read further.

Till next time

Johnny and Grant