Have you been unfairly dismissed? Our attorneys have extensive experience in all aspects of labour law, including collective bargaining, strikes and lockouts, unfair labour practices, arbitration and mediation, employment contracts, employee benefits plans and other issues.
We provide creative solutions to help our clients manage the challenges they face in this
ever-changing environment.
Reasons for termination
- The capability of an employee. This is usually determined by their level of skill, qualifications or experience and how they perform in their role.
- The conduct of the employee, which includes any behaviour that has or may bring the company into disrepute.
- Redundancy, which occurs when there is no longer work for an employee to do or the work they do becomes redundant and there are no other suitable roles for them within the company.
- Misconduct (e.g. theft) – no disciplinary process is required if it is serious enough not to warrant this.
- Statutory illegality, which can occur when someone does something illegal outside of work and this affects their ability to carry out their duties at work.
- Some other substantial reason (SOSR), which means that there was another good reason to terminate employment but not enough to fall under one of the other four categories, such as ill-feeling between colleagues that makes it impossible for them to work together.
Unfair dismissal claims
An employer must treat its employees fairly and reasonably and apply consistent standards
when selecting which employees are to be dismissed. In dismissing an employee, an employer
must have a good reason and follow correct procedure, otherwise they could be liable for unfair
dismissal.
When an employer is looking to dismiss an employee, the first thing they should do is check
whether there is a fair reason for dismissal. If the employer can prove that their reasons for
dismissal are fair, then it won’t be unfair. There are many reasons that are considered fair, but
the most common include poor performance, misconduct and redundancy.
The law on unfair dismissal is complex, and there can be many factors which affect whether or
not a dismissal is lawful. These include: length of service, type of employee (for example, an
agency worker or fixed term employee), how much notice was given, how long it took for the
disciplinary process to take place, what sort of investigation was carried out and whether there
were any witnesses.
If you have been dismissed by your employer and you believe that it was unfair then we would
recommend that you seek specialist employment law advice from our team at BY Mokoena
Attorneys.
