Category Archives: Basic Conditions of Employment Act

Update on New Legislation

Basic Conditions of Employment Act, Update

On the 17 February the Department of Labour gazetted new regulations.  The regulations have the purpose of:

Publishing a New Summary of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act

The new summary has details of the new adoption leave, commissioning leave and parental leave provisions.  This means that we all have to get a new summary for our office walls.

The gazette also revises several forms for the internal use of Department of Labour.  This includes a compliance order which indicates the fines which may be imposed on an employer who fails to comply with the National Minimum Wages Act.

Revising the National Minimum Wage

The National minimum wage has been increased with effect from 1 March 2020.  The effective increase is 3.38% which is pretty much an inflationary increase.

The new minimum wages are:          

  • R20-76 per hour for General Staff
  • R18.68 per hour for Farm Workers
  • R15-57 per hour for Domestic Workers
  • R11-42 per hour for employees in municipal job creation projects

 Learnership allowances have also been increased.

Sectoral Increases

The gazette legislates minimum wages for the Contract Cleaning Sector which are effective from 1 March 2020 and corrected minimum wages for the Wholesale and Retail Sector which were effective from 1 October 2019.

A copy of the Regulations is available on the Website and from our office. If you have any concerns or questions or would like to order a copy of the new summary of the BCEA, please contact one of the associates or our office on 011 452 1707.

AMENDMENT TO LEGISLATION

The proposed amendments to the Employment Equity Act which were first published in September 2018 has been forwarded to Parliament for approval.  The gazettes main focus is to allow the Minister of Labour to establish Sector Employment Equity Targets which companies in that sector must then plan to achieve.

The gazette also promulgates section 53 of the Employment Equity Act requiring that employers who want to do work with the state or parastatal companies must have a certificate of compliance.

The good news is that the intention is to do away with the turnover requirements for compliance with the legislation and going forward only companies with 50 or more employees will be required to comply with Chapter III of the Employment Equity Act.  However, the act has to still go to the Provinces and then to be promulgated.  Maybe they can manage that before 1 October 2020?