A New Approach to Dispute Resolution in the South African Public Service

Abstract

The South African Public Service is a unique personnel corps comprising approximately 70 percent of total public sector employment. Its responsibility to ensure that the South African public is provided with high-quality goods and services, is a constitutional obligation. A professional, stable and reliable Public Service is indispensable for the realization of the state's democratic, economic and social goals. Like other employment sectors, the Public Service now enjoys constitutionally entrenched labor relations rights through the enactment of national legislation, namely the Labor Relations Act, 1995. Apart from other innovations and strategic ideas, the act establishes a new dispensation for dispute resolution in the form of the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration, the Labor Court and the Labor Appeal Court.