Tectonic shifts for SA’s labour laws

Chloë Loubser, Knowledge and Learning Lawyer: Employment and Data Protection, Bowmans

In February, we saw the release of the Nedlac Report on the Labour Law Reform Process, along with four draft amendment bills, which propose amendments to the Labour Relations Act, 1995 (LRA), the Basic Conditions of Employment Act, 1997 (BCEA), the National Minimum Wage Act, 2018 and the Employment Equity Act, 1998 (EEA), respectively.

Sectoral targets a shake-up for employment equity plans

Then, on 15 April 2025, the Minister of Employment and Labour published two final sets of regulations under the EEA, following amendments to that statute which took effect on 1 January 2025.

The first introduced five-year sector-specific numerical targets across national economic sectors, with no further public comment permitted.

The second replaced the 2014 Employment Equity Regulations with updated provisions dealing with administrative matters, including the duties of designated employers, enforcement mechanisms, and the issuance of compliance certificates.

These changes have sparked notable legal resistance, with the first court judgment on sector targets delivered on 28 August 2025.

On that date, the Gauteng High Court dismissed an urgent application by an employer association and business lobby group to interdict and/or suspend the operation of the published targets, saying, among other things, that it could not undo completed action; in other words, the horse had already bolted.

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Applications for leave to appeal against this judgment were lodged, and Part B of the main application – a judicial review of the published targets and the impugned provisions of the EEA and the regulations – is still pending.

The new requirements, however, remain in effect, unless and until set aside, obliging all designated employers (including those with 50 or more employees) to update their employment equity plans accordingly. The first reporting period under this new regime opened on 1 September 2025 and closed on 15 January 2026. Employers will be measured against their first-year targets for the first time in the 2026 reporting period.

New consolidated Dismissal Code

The next notable development was the publication of a new Code of Good Practice on Dismissals on 4 September 2025, after an initial draft was published in January for public comment.

While not fundamentally different to the previous code, the new Code now consolidates guidance in respect of all forms of dismissal in one document and reflects the legal position on issues like procedural fairness, performance management of senior employees and incompatibility, that has developed in recent years through the jurisprudence of our courts.

On the subject matter of courts, both the Labour Court and Labour Appeal Court have now moved fully online, after initial pilot projects were conducted last year. From 14 April 2025, Court Online, South Africa’s efiling and case management system, has to be used by litigants and practitioners for all new cases initiated in these courts.

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A new era for parental leave

Lastly, but certainly not the least significant in this year’s changes, is the groundbreaking judgment by the Constitutional Court on 3 October 2025 in Van Wyk and Another v Minister of Employment and Labour, which has fundamentally altered the legal landscape for parental leave in South Africa.

This follows the decision by the High Court last year that found the relevant provisions of the BCEA and Unemployment Insurance Act to be unconstitutional and invalid. The Constitutional Court confirmed this ruling, agreeing that the impugned provisions unfairly discriminate between mothers and fathers and among different categories of parents in terms of the duration of leave afforded to them and the extent and duration of benefits provided.

It suspended the declarations of invalidity for 36 months to allow Parliament an opportunity to cure the defects in the legislation and ordered an interim reading-in for the BCEA, with immediate effect from the date of the order.

In practice, the effect of the Court’s reading-in is that the separate statutory categories of maternity, parental, adoption and commissioning parental leave are, for the interim period, consolidated into a single parental leave framework, which must now be shared between partners in a parental relationship.

While the judgment reflects an enlightened approach to caregiving as a shared responsibility, the order has raised several legal and practical difficulties for employers to navigate, particularly those who historically provided enhanced parental leave benefits.

Together, these changes represent a substantial recalibration of South Africa’s employment regulatory regime. Employers are strongly advised to stay abreast of these developments, assess their internal policies for alignment, and seek legal guidance where necessary to remain compliant in an increasingly complex labour environment.