COSATU statement on the Constitutional Court ruling on Labour brokers
26 July 2018
The Congress of South African Trade Unions has noted and welcomes the ruling by the Constitutional Court that forces employers to automatically convert all contracts of workers after three months into permanent employment with all rights and benefits.
The Constitutional Court in the NUMSA v Assign Services has authoritatively ruled that after a period of three months the placed worker becomes the employee of the sole employer that is the actual employer.
We applaud NUMSA for pursuing this case all the way to the Constitutional Court and we view this as a step forward and we feel that the ruling will ultimately lead to the demise of labour brokers.
Since the coming into effect of the 2014 Labour Relations Amendment Act, there has been a deliberate confusion by employers on the question of who becomes the employer of the placed workers, when the period of three months kicks in. The Labour Appeal Court had previously ruled that after a period of three months there is sole employment in the sense that the client or the real employer becomes the only employer and not the labour broker.