Load shedding has become an unfortunate and unavoidable part of the daily life of every South African. While some people try their best to make light of the situation and do their best to work around the regular power blackouts, other people (and businesses) suffer serious losses because of it.
Load shedding is the act of scheduled interruptions of electricity supply being implemented in order to circumvent excess load on the generating plant. This takes place when the demand for electricity exceeds the supply of electricity, which threatens to destabilize the national power grid. Thus, Eskom implements regular power blackouts in certain geographical areas to ensure that its customers will continue to have access to electricity in the future.
Load shedding and the continuous power blackouts is leading to a lot of breakdowns around the entire country. Several in a day goes by where business owners must temporarily close their shops due to not owning a generator and not being able to trade for the duration of a blackout. This has business owners begging the question of whether they can deduct pay from their staff that are not able to work during long power outages.
Many business owners and employers are of the opinion that they are allowed to enforce a “no work, no pay” policy in their workplace, resulting in staff having to wait for the power to go back on while being unpaid for this time. This is not the case. According to South African Labour Law, an employer is obliged to pay their employees for this time, regardless of whether the employee is unable to fulfil his/her duties due to a power outage. This is the common law obligation created by virtue of an employment contract – the employee agrees to provide his/her service and the employer has the obligation to remunerate for services rendered. If the employee offers his/her service by being at work, he/her has complied with his/her common law duty.
Section 34 of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act 75 of 1997 (“BCEA”) deals with the deductions an employer is permitted make from the remuneration due to an employee. This section states that an employer may not deduct remuneration unless the employee agrees to the deduction of a debt in writing, or it is permitted in terms of a law, collective agreement, court order or arbitration award.
The reality is thus clear: Without any agreement to the contrary, (which must be obtained in a collective agreement), when there is a power outage and work cannot be done, the fact that the employee is present to complete his/her work, means that the employer is obligated to pay the employee for that time.
Negotiations regarding a change to working hours, short-time work or potential overtime can be entered into between the employer and the employee. In the event of this being unsuccessful, various employers may be forced to enter into section 189 retrenchments due to a loss of business contracts, clients, production and revenue. However, it is always best to secure proper legal advice if faced with any of the above problems, whether you are a business owner, employer, or employee.
This blog post is provided for informational purposes only and should not be substituted for legal advice on any specific matter. Any opinions expressed herein are subject to the law as at the time of writing and will change in accordance with any changes in law. We recommend that you contact Harvey & Associates at info@harveylaw.co.za directly for advice applicable to your specific matter.
