The Johannesburg Labour Court has ruled that community health workers who have been employed by the National Department of Health for years on recurring fixed-term contracts must be deemed permanent government employees – a triumph for more than 50 000 workers, reports GroundUp.
The National Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu) successfully overturned the previous bargaining council ruling that the temporary contracts were legal, the issue having first been ventilated before the Public Health and Social Development Sectoral Bargaining Council in 2021.
The commissioner had found that the contracts were permitted by the Public Service Act, were concluded through collective agreements with unions, and were justified in terms of the Labour Relations Act (LRA) as they were funded by an “external source for a limited period” – the National Treasury.
Nehawu took the ruling on review. The matter was argued before Johannesburg Labour Court Acting Judge Ashley Cook in October last year, who handed down his ruling last week (23 January), overturning the bargaining council’s findings.
On the issue of “external funding” – the legal justification in the LRA for fixing the contract terms – Cook said the department had correctly submitted it was not disputed that the funding for the workers’ employment of was a conditional grant approved by National Treasury on an annual basis.
“However, what was in dispute was whether the conditional grant was from an external source. The department receives all revenue from the National Treasury,” he said.
As funding for all public servants was sourced from the Treasury, this meant that it was not an “external source”, and therefore the department could not rely on it as a “justifiable reason” to deviate from the provisions of the LRA.
The contracts of the community health workers were therefore, in terms of the Act, deemed to be of an “indefinite duration”, the judge said, setting aside the arbitration award.
He made no order as to costs.
Nehawu welcomed the ruling, saying community health workers had been on perennial contractual renewals without a clear explanation from the Department of Health.
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See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Failed bid to have 47,000 community health workers made permanent
Gauteng community healthcare workers strike over permanent jobs