The Labour Court has ruled that diamond giant De Beers acted unlawfully when it retrenched workers, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said on Wednesday.
Judgement was passed on Tuesday, the union said in a statement.
NUM said it had approached the Labour Court for relief after De Beers served its members with Section 189 notices and retrenched them without following due processes as stipulated in the Labour Relations Act.
”The NUM held that the notices of retrenchment were premature and unlawful in terms of section 189A(8)(b) read with section 189A(2)(a) of the Labour Relations Act and that De Beers failed to engage in and conclude a meaningful consensus-seeking process with it.”
The union said while it agreed on the retrenchment process in terms of Section 189, that process was not properly followed by De Beers in that the issue of severance packages was not agreed upon while ”De Beers rushed into dismissing the employees even before the agreed date”.
A total of 1 467 employees were affected by De Beers ‘s illegal dismissals, NUM said.
”The Labour Court held that De Beers’ action was indeed illegal and declared that the termination of members contracts is of no force and effect,” the union added.
It said the court also ordered De Beers to pay the costs.
De Beers’ spokesperson Tom Tweedy said the company had received the judgement.
”We have received Acting Justice Bhoola’s order in the Labour Court dispute between the NUM and De Beers.
”We await the judge’s reasoning before we can respond on the basis of the reasons to be handed down,” Tweedy said.
He added later that De Beers had received a number of questions arising from the matter and wished to place on record that it currently employed 2 574 people in six mining operations.
”Following many deep cost-cutting steps to counter the effects of the global economic downturn, the company regretfully undertook a retrenchment process involving many steps, including the issuing of S189 notices, and consultation with all employees, and regretfully the issuing of termination notices,” Tweedy said.
A total of 659 employees were affected at De Beers Consolidated Mines, he added.
”Of this number of retrenchees 286 employees had their application for voluntary retrenchment accepted; and 373 retrenchments were involuntary.
”There was at the start of the process approximately 1 400 positions at risk, of which several hundred posts were vacant.”
Tweedy added that in respect of the order, it was the company’s current understanding that the notices of termination issued were, based on a technical legal argument, ”of no force and effect”.
”The company will therefore consider carefully the reasons for the order and decide whether to take the matter up on appeal, or whether it should now issue new notices of termination thereby effecting the retrenchments and complying with the order.”
He said the order did not mean retrenched employees would be reinstated. — Sapa