Labour bill to be gazetted tomorrow

Parliament is expected to gazette the Labour Amendment Bill tomorrow, a development that kick-starts the process that will stop job losses that have affected tens of thousands of workers over the past four weeks.

Both private and public companies have used the July 17 Supreme Court ruling that exposed a gap in the Labour Act that gave both employers and employees the same legal status under the common law.

This position allows companies to lay off workers on three months' notice without going through the expensive retrenchment process.

If passed into law, the Act is expected to bring relief among workers who have since lost job security as employers can just fire them willy-nilly. Government has since introduced amendments that it expects to protect both employers and employees.