Nature of the Dispute

[1] This matter concerns an alleged substantively and procedurally unfair retrenchment of 18 employees of the respondent. Two of the applicants, applicants 12 and 17, being Mr R Rakgoropo and Mr IE Selepe had withdrawn from the matter by the time it came to trial. A question mark was also raised about whether the 13th applicant, Mr MS Nkhumeleni was still a party to the matter, but he had reportedly been re-employed had subsequently absconded. The individual applicants are part of a group of employees retrenched in December 2011 following an initial retrenchment of three operators the previous month. The respondent is a civil engineering and construction company specialising amongst other things in roadworks, infrastructure and bulk earthworks. In 2011 the respondent’s business was adversely affected by the economic downturn as a result of which it lost a number of private clients and became very dependent on government contracts.

[2] There was no dispute about the fairness of the retrenchment of the three operators which was concluded after five consultative meetings between the union and the respondent. Essentially, the disagreement between the parties concerns whether or not the retrenchment process which ended with the retrenchment of the three operators was part of an ongoing process or was concluded when they were retrenched, and whether the respondent should have consulted a fresh over the subsequent retrenchments in December. The applicants also challenge the substantive fairness of the retrenchments. The individual applicants seek maximum compensation as relief.