Retrenchment procedures under the spotlight

Johannesburg employers can no longer retrench workers to make way for better skilled employees without making adequate training opportunities available, the Food and Allied Workers Union (Fawu) said yesterday.

Business Report quotes Fawu General-Secretary Derrick Cele as saying his union won a case before the Cape Labour Court on Friday in which Acting Judge Patrick Gamble had found that South African Breweries (SAB) had wrongly dismissed 115 Fawu members from its Newlands plant in Cape Town between May and August 2001. The report says that in his judgment, Gamble said SAB had ‘completely ignored’ certain selection criteria for retrenchment contained in a collective agreement binding the two parties.

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This article is attributed to Business Report.
Date: 2004-09-07

 

This snippet is attributed to Legalbrief Today. To participate in a free month’s subscription to Legalbrief’s daily legal news service click here.

 

Cameraphones: Innocuous Gadgets or Workplace Threats

More employers are realizing the need for a formal policy that puts employees on notice as to the limits of permissible cameraphone use in the workplace.

The single most important thing an employer can do is create and consistently follow a cameraphone policy. Read more.

 

Cameraphones: Innocuous Gadgets or Workplace Threats

More employers are realizing the need for a formal policy that puts employees on notice as to the limits of permissible cameraphone use in the workplace.

The single most important thing an employer can do is create and consistently follow a cameraphone policy. Read more.

Cameraphones: Innocuous Gadgets or Workplace Threats

More employers are realizing the need for a formal policy that puts employees on notice as to the limits of permissible cameraphone use in the workplace.

The single most important thing an employer can do is create and consistently follow a cameraphone policy. Read more.

Retrenchment procedures under the spotlight

Johannesburg employers can no longer retrench workers to make way for better skilled employees without making adequate training opportunities available, the Food and Allied Workers Union (Fawu) said yesterday.

Business Report quotes Fawu General-Secretary Derrick Cele as saying his union won a case before the Cape Labour Court on Friday in which Acting Judge Patrick Gamble had found that South African Breweries (SAB) had wrongly dismissed 115 Fawu members from its Newlands plant in Cape Town between May and August 2001. The report says that in his judgment, Gamble said SAB had ‘completely ignored’ certain selection criteria for retrenchment contained in a collective agreement binding the two parties.

Read the original report
This article is attributed to Business Report.
Date: 2004-09-07

 

This snippet is attributed to Legalbrief Today. To participate in a free month’s subscription to Legalbrief’s daily legal news service click here.

 

What our law says about rape

The Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1997 prescribes compulsory sentence for rape. If a woman has been raped more than once, or by more than one person acting in conjunction with another, or by a person who knows that he is HIV-positive, or the victim is seriously injured, is under 16, physically disabled or mentally ill, the perpetrator must be sentenced to life imprisonment. So says a column in The Herald which examines how the law in SA interprets r ape. Although Roman-Dutch law required that to constitute r ape, the woman’s resistance had to be overcome by force, in SA law it suffices if the woman’s resistance is overcome by either force, fear or fraud. An example of ‘fear’ is the perpetrator brandishing a firearm or knife. An example of resistance overcome by fraud is the case, often quoted to students, in which a music teacher was convicted of r ape after convincing his pupil that s exual intercourse would improve her voice.

Provided courtesy of Legalbrief Today. To participate in a free month’s subscription to Legalbrief’s daily legal news service click here.

 

 

Mum tries to curb son squandering his fortune

The mother of a wealthy German businessman has launched a court bid to stop her millionaire son from squandering his fortune. A report in the Sunday Times says Helga Eichenauer (64) told the Cape High Court how her estranged son Andreas (34) allowed his R2m farm in the Hemel en Aarde valley near Hermanus to go to ruin and harassed his therapist after a car crash in which he suffered severe injuries. He was so infatuated with the therapist that he sent her a R2m bank-guaranteed cheque and a note asking her to marry him, according to the report. Eichenauer is seeking an order appointing a permanent curator to manage his affairs as she believes his personality disorder causes him to spend his money irresponsibly. Her attorney said in papers before court Andreas Eichenauer was not in South Africa and ‘his whereabouts are unknown’.

Court orders wife to pay maintenance to husband

A former church minister has successfully sued his high-earning wife for ‘maintenance’. Port Elizabeth estate agent Genevieve Behrens will have to pay her estranged husband, Robin, R1 450 a month, pending their divorce, reports The Herald. Mrs Behrens opposed the order for maintenance on the grounds that her husband was unwilling to secure a steady job and preferred ‘sleeping with a pillow over his head’ until midday every day, while she had to be up from 6am fixing the children’s lunches, dropping them off at school and then still having to work a 10-hour day. While admitting she received a good salary – about R40 000, according to Mr Behrens – she said if the court was to order her to maintain her husband, it would ‘simply encourage him to continue with his leisurely lifestyle without making any effort to support himself’. Before handing down judgment, Acting Judge Elna Revelas referred to the case as ‘unusual’, adding that she did not want to make a ruling that would ‘create a precedent’.

Provided courtesy of Legalbrief Today. To participate in a free month’s subscription to Legalbrief’s daily legal news service click here.