When your shift is called off on an hour's notice and your rent is due tomorrow, a change in the law can mean the difference between paying the bill and going hungry.
This everyday risk is exactly what the draft Employment Amendment Bill and the Draft Labor Relations Amendment Bill, 2025 aim to address. Together, they propose changes to the core employment laws that set out the basic conditions of employees, how disputes are resolved, and what protections and remedies are available.
The Bill proposes to amend key parts of employment law, including the Labor Relations Act (LRA), the Basic Conditions of Employment Act (BCEA), and the Employment Equity Act (EEA). These laws are the legal pillars that regulate unfair dismissal, working time and leave, equity pay and minimum wage.
Which rights can be strengthened?
Parental leave is being modernized
The existing maternity and parental leave provisions in the BCEA were ruled unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court because they discriminate between different classes of parents based on the length of leave available.
According to the draft proposals, parents will be able to share parental leave. A single employed parent will be entitled to four months of parental leave, while two employed parents can share a total of four months and 10 days of leave.
If the reform is passed, parental leave will now extend to adoptive parents (for children up to six years of age) and commission parents in surrogate arrangements.
The proposed parental leave rules move South Africa's labor laws closer to what the Constitution already promises: that all parents should be treated equally and that families should not be penalized when a child is born or adopted.
Protection for distressed workers
Proposed section 9B of the BCEA would require employers to set guaranteed hours, maximum hours and reasonable notice periods for on-call and minimum-maximum contracts, as well as introducing a minimum wage guarantee.
This is a direct response to the insecurity faced by many workers in retail, hospitality and platform work, who are often vulnerable to irregular hours, lack of guaranteed income and last-minute cancellations.
In the context of the proposed reforms, employers must clearly specify in writing the guaranteed hours, maximum hours, availability period and reasonable notice period for reporting to work or canceling a shift.
If the reforms are passed, employers who cancel work without giving proper notice will be forced to compensate employees for those lost hours. If this is implemented it will be a victory for human rights.
There should be transparency in salary and equal remuneration.
The amendments to the EEA aim to prevent employers from asking about past salary and require disclosure of remuneration ranges.
This is human rights protection. Past salaries often reflect past discrimination. During apartheid, women, black South Africans, people with disabilities, and workers starting in low-paid sectors were routinely paid less due to long-standing inequalities.
When employers pay new wages based on old wages, they silently perpetuate those injustices.
Statutory minimum severance pay for dismissal due to operational needs
The proposals aim to increase severance pay from the current one week's remuneration for each completed year of service to two weeks' remuneration for each completed year of service.
This is not just a financial adjustment. It reinforces several key human rights principles embedded in the Constitution of South Africa. It protects the dignity of workers, protects families from sudden poverty, and ensures that layoffs do not penalize people who lose their jobs through no fault of their own.
minimum wage
The reforms require that workers be paid at least the legal minimum wage in real money they actually take home. Employers cannot consider deferred income, such as contributions to pension funds, in calculating the minimum wage.
where rights may be weakened
Limits on some measures
Reinstatement or re-employment will be waived for higher earners, except in cases of automatic unfair dismissal.
Compensation for general unfair dismissal will be capped at 12 months' salary, with a maximum of R1,800,000 per annum, which will be adjusted annually for inflation.
Dismissal easier for new employees
Procedural shortcuts to dismissal during probation, and measures to prevent duplicate claims, may speed up dispute resolution, but they also risk eroding procedural fairness for vulnerable workers, who often lack legal support.
The changes to South African labor law are more than a technical cleanup of old laws. It is a test of whether the country is willing to put human dignity, equality and fairness at the center of working life.
The proposed reforms contain real benefits. These include stronger protections for workers with insecure jobs, modernized parental leave entitlements that finally recognize adoptive and commissioned parents, and improved severance benefits for those who lose their jobs through no fault of their own.
These are not small victories. They speak directly to the Constitution's promise that every person has the right to work, raise a family, and live with dignity.
*The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of the newspaper.*
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