In the Sibanye Rustenburg Platinum Mines v Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration and Others (JR122/23) [2025] ZALCJHB 212 (May 6 2025), the Labour Court upheld the dismissal of an employee after finding that a CCMA commissioner’s ruling in his favour was unreasonable.
The employee, an electrician with 12 years of service and a clean record, was dismissed in September 2021 for breaching the employer’s strict health and safety “Rules of Life”.
He entered a conveyor belt area and tip vibrator without applying the mandatory lockout and isolation procedures.
A safety officer observed the breach and questioned the employee, who admitted he had not locked out the machinery.
The employee argued that the lockout would have prevented him from identifying the fault and that no real danger existed, as no power was running through the equipment.
Despite this, the employer dismissed the employee.
Following his dismissal, the employee challenged the decision at the CCMA.
The commissioner accepted that the employee had breached the employer’s safety rules, which are designed to prevent injury or death.
However, he found that dismissal was too harsh. He reasoned that:
- The employee had a “plausible reason” for not locking out;
- No harm resulted from his actions;
- The trust relationship had not been irreparably broken, especially since only the safety officer testified on this point; and
- With 12 years of clean service, a lesser sanction could correct his behaviour.
The commissioner reinstated the employee with a final written warning valid for 12 months.
The employer approached the Labour Court to review the award, arguing that the commissioner had failed to fully appreciate the seriousness of the misconduct and the risks involved.
The Labour Court agreed, finding that the commissioner had contradicted himself by stating there could be no exceptions to safety rules, but then excusing the employee’s breach.
The court emphasised that safety breaches in dangerous mining environments pose serious operational and legal risks to employers, and that dismissal in such cases is often justified, regardless of long service.
The court also rejected the notion that the company had to call a supervisor to prove a breakdown in trust, noting that the seriousness of the misconduct itself was enough to justify dismissal.
Citing established case law, the Labour Court held that the commissioner had failed to apply his mind to material issues, including the employer’s legal duty to provide a safe workplace and the potential consequences of ignoring safety rules.
The Labour Court set aside the CCMA’s award and substituted it with a finding that the employee’s dismissal was substantively fair.
The judgment reinforces the strict approach taken by courts in cases involving health and safety breaches, confirming that even long-serving employees are not shielded from dismissal when safety is compromised.
In this weekly column, labour lawyer Jonathan Goldberg, chair of Global Business Solutions, looks at various aspects of labour law
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