Basic Conditions of Employment and Minimum Wages Flashcards
What is a domestic worker?
an employee who performs domestic work in the home of his or her employer and includes a gardener, a person employed by a household as a driver of a motor vehicle and a person who takes care of the children, the aged, the sick, the frail or the disabled, but does not include a farm worker.
What is a farm worker?
A farm worker means an employee who is employed mainly in or in connection with farming activities and includes an employee who wholly or mainly performs domestic work in a home on a farm.
What is remuneration?
Means any payment in money and/or in kind, made or owing to any person in return for that person working for any other person, including the State.
What is a senior managerial employee?
Means an employee who has the authority to hire, discipline and dismiss employees and to represent the employer internally and externally.
What is a temporary employment service?
Means any person who, for reward, procures for or provides to a client other persons who render services or performs work for that client and who are remunerated by the temporary employment service.
What is wage?
Means the amount of money paid or payable to an employee in respect of ordinary hours of work or, if they are shorter, the hours an employee ordinarily works in a day or week.
What is an employer?
Means any person who is obliged to pay a worker for the work that the worker performs for that person.
What is a worker/employee?
Means any person who works for another and who receives or is entitled to receive any payment for that work, whether in money or in kind.
What are the various employment conditions?
Written Information upon Appointment: Employers must provide employees with written details about their job, including the employer’s and employee’s information, job description, work hours, wages, overtime pay, payment intervals, deductions, leave, notice period, and any relevant agreements or documents.
This must be explained in a language the employee understands.
Record-Keeping: Employers must maintain records of each employee’s name, occupation, hours worked, remuneration, and, for employees under 18, date of birth, for three years.
Employers with fewer than five employees are exempt from this requirement.
Employee Rights Display: Employers must display the rights of employees under the BCEA in all official languages spoken at the workplace, except if they employ fewer than five employees.
Payment of Remuneration: Remuneration is paid in South African currency and can be made in cash, by cheque, or direct deposit within seven days after the pay period or contract termination.
Employers must provide written details of the payment, including gross pay, deductions, net pay, and payment period.
Wages Calculation: Wages are based on hours worked, with a standard of 45 hours per week or less, depending on the employee’s regular schedule.
Monthly remuneration is four-and-one-third times the weekly remuneration.
Remuneration Inclusions and Exclusions: For annual leave, notice pay, and severance pay calculations, include housing and car allowances, medical aid, pension contributions, funeral schemes, and other cash/in-kind payments (excluding relocation allowances, gratuities, share incentives, discretionary payments, entertainment, and education allowances).
Deductions: Deductions from wages require written consent or must be legally mandated, not exceeding one-quarter of the remuneration.
Employers cannot require repayment of received remuneration except for overpayments due to errors.
Prohibited Payments: Employers cannot demand payment for employment allocation or require employees to buy goods/services from the employer unless part of a beneficial scheme.
Benefit Funds: Deductions for benefit funds must be paid to the fund within seven days, along with the employer’s contributions.
What are the notice periods for termination of employment?
One week if employed for six months or less.
Two weeks if employed for more than six months but less than one year.
Four weeks if employed for one year or more.
What are the payments upon termination that the employer owes?
Outstanding overtime pay or payment for time off in lieu.
Remuneration for untaken annual leave.
Proportional leave pay for incomplete annual leave cycles if employed longer than four months.
Notice pay if the notice period is not worked.
Any outstanding wages/salary.
Severance pay only if retrenched or due to employer insolvency
What are provisions are included in a sectorial determination?
Minimum Wages: Establishes minimum wages and the method and timing for their payment.
Remuneration Adjustments: Provides for minimum rates or increases in remuneration.
Conditions of Employment: Covers hours of work, overtime, work on Sundays and public holidays, night work, leave, etc., while ensuring maternity leave and night work protections are not reduced.
Remuneration in Kind: Regulates how payment in kind is managed.
Work Regulations: Includes provisions for task-based work, piecework, homework, subcontracting, and contract work.
Housing and Sanitation: Sets minimum standards for housing and sanitation for employees living on employer premises.
Allowances: Specifies travelling and other work-related allowances.
Trainee Conditions: Defines minimum conditions of employment for trainees.
Benefit Schemes: Regulates pension, provident, medical aid, sick pay, holiday, and unemployment schemes or funds.
Non-Employee Conditions: Establishes minimum conditions of employment for persons other than employees.
Trade Union Rights: Sets the threshold of representativeness for trade unions to access employer premises and manage trade union subscription deductions.
Labour Tenants: Establishes the method for determining employment conditions for labour tenants with rights to occupy and use part of a farm as per the Land Reform (Labour Tenants) Act 3 of 1996.
