AP Photo/Arnulfo Franco AP Photo/Arnulfo Franco
Durban - Workers who lost their jobs six years ago when production was reduced at the co-operative at which they were employed got an early Christmas present when the Durban Labour Court ordered that they get their jobs back.
Judge Hamilton Cele has ordered the reinstatement of 42 workers and that they be paid six months of salary retrospectively.
He ordered the workers to report to work this month, failing which they would only be entitled to 10 months’ compensation. He ordered that in the case of two more workers, who had since died, 10 months’ compensation should be paid into their estates.
The court was dealing with a case brought by the Chemical Energy Paper Printing Wood and Allied Workers Union on behalf of workers who had been employed by Bayfibre Central Co-operative Limited, which is based in Richards Bay.
According to the judgment, Bayfibre is a wholly-owned subsidiary of NCT Forestry Co-operative Limited which was formed in 2009.
Bayfibre, which produces wood chips, was formed after another co-operative that NCT had a 50 percent share in was dissolved. It inherited the full staff complement from the other co-operative but only one wood-chip processing line.
In 2009, a Japanese customer reduced its product requirements and this left Bayfibre overstaffed and with only 23% of the volume previously required to produce.
Therefore it retrenched some of its staff in August 2009.
In June 2010, after it was told by NCT to “tighten their belts” because the economy was depressed, Bayfibre embarked on another retrenchment process and 47 employees were dismissed.
However by December 2010, Bayfibre needed workers and hired 48 workers from a labour broker in order to deal with the amount of work required.
According to the judgment, in the years since the retrenchment, the company had seen an upturn in business.
Judge Cele said it appeared that the 2010 retrenchment process had “cut too deep”.
“The company employed 48 people to do precisely what the retrenched members had been doing. The disturbing feature of this development is that the company never consulted the union to help it trace the employees it had recently retrenched. There was even a collective agreement binding the company to re-employ these employees.”
He said the conclusion was “irresistible” that the company wanted to rid itself of these employees.
Judge Cele found that there was no rational operational justification for the decision to retrench the employees and found that the dismissal of the 44, who had approached the court, had been “substantively unfair”.
The judge said the employees, who had taken the matter to court, wanted their jobs back and he could find no impediment against re-
instatement.
He granted the company three months to pay the six months’ salary and that the amounts should be what the workers would have earned if they had not been dismissed.
Law firm Macgregor Erasmus Attorneys, which acted for Bayfibre, said it was seeking clarity on the terms of the order.
The union's regional secretary, Musa Bhengu, said the workers were thrilled by the judgment and were looking forward to going back to work.