An analytical framework to assess green transition jobs in South Africa

Unfair discrimination is deeply woven into the fabric of South African society. In the post-apartheid constitutional era, the Constitution guarantees the right to equality in the pursuit of "the full and equal enjoyment of all rights and freedoms". This reflects the adoption of substantive equality, which goes beyond mere formal equality. The constitutional right to equality is grounded in two constitutionally mandated mechanisms: affirmative action, and the prohibition of unfair discrimination. Within the broader transformative vision of the Constitution, the prohibition of unfair discrimination plays a dual role: it serves as a baseline for the defence of formal equality; and it acts as a tool of transformation, particularly through the protection against indirect unfair discrimination. Protection against indirect unfair discrimination is also provided in section 6(1) of the Employment Equity Act. In a transformative context, protection against indirect discrimination is particularly significant because it recognises that equal treatment can sometimes perpetuate inequality. By uncovering and dismantling hidden barriers and power structures in the workplace, protection against indirect unfair discrimination plays a crucial role in fostering substantive equality and driving long-term, systemic change. Yet, despite its transformative potential, the application of protection against indirect unfair discrimination in South African labour jurisprudence has been limited. Against the aforesaid background, the article provides an overview of the approach adopted by South African labour courts to the protection against indirect unfair discrimination under South African labour law, while ultimately critiquing it.

As digital platforms increasingly serve as vital intermediaries in the South African labor market, they offer a promising avenue for addressing the systemic challenge of high youth unemployment. Platforms like JOBJACK facilitate connections between entry-level seekers and employers; however, the rapid scaling of these services has generated an overwhelming volume of unstructured data. Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in this sector often find themselves data-rich but insight-poor, struggling to systematically process diverse feedback streams—including application comments, helpdesk queries, and social media interactions—into actionable business intelligence. While traditional quantitative metrics provide high-level snapshots of platform activity, they consistently fail to capture the nuanced underlying user sentiments, such as frustration with technical barriers or developing trust in the digital ecosystem. This study explores the critical gap between raw data collection and strategic service improvement. By examining the limitations of current analytical frameworks used by South African SMEs, the research underscores the necessity of integrating advanced qualitative sentiment analysis into operational workflows. Ultimately, the paper argues that for digital labour platforms to maintain user retention and drive socio-economic impact, they must transition toward sophisticated data processing models that prioritize the human experience embedded within unstructured user feedback.

ABSTRACT As South Africa enters the fourth decade since the end of apartheid, progress in addressing historical inequalities and improving access to educational and employment opportunities appears to be mixed. This paper analyses a pooled cross-sectional dataset covering most of the post-apartheid period to examine aggregate trends in educational and employment outcomes. These outcomes are explored further through the construction of a set of pseudo-cohorts that experienced the post-apartheid period at different stages of the life cycle. The findings suggest that there is some evidence of progress, particularly in relation to education. However, improvements in labour market outcomes have been elusive over the period. Employment and unemployment rates were almost unchanged across four cohorts of South Africans that would have been expected to experience different labour market conditions. Such findings highlight the truly sclerotic nature of the South African labour market and its limitations in contributing to transformation and reducing inequality.

Economic Growth and Youth Unemployment in South Africa: A Dynamic Analysis of Structural Constraints and Policy Implications

The Labour Appeal Court’s decision in Registrar of Labour Relations v Simunye Workers Forum raises fundamental questions about whether South African labour law accommodates organisational diversity for trade unions representing non-standard workers. The Registrar refused to register an organisation of precarious workers that adopted a nonhierarchical constitution featuring rotating leadership and participatory democracy, citing non-compliance with s 95 of the Labour Relations Act. While the Labour Court endorsed a purposive interpretation informed by constitutional values, the Labour Appeal Court insisted on traditional governance structures. This discussion argues that the Labour Appeal Court’s formalistic approach misapplies established interpretive principles, creates insurmountable barriers for vulnerable workers and conflicts with South Africa’s obligations under ILO Conventions 87 and 98. Legislative reform is proposed.

The Labour Appeal Court’s decision in Registrar of Labour Relations v Simunye Workers Forum raises fundamental questions about whether South African labour law accommodates organisational diversity for trade unions representing non-standard workers. The Registrar refused to register an organisation of precarious workers that adopted a nonhierarchical constitution featuring rotating leadership and participatory democracy, citing non-compliance with s 95 of the Labour Relations Act. While the Labour Court endorsed a purposive interpretation informed by constitutional values, the Labour Appeal Court insisted on traditional governance structures. This discussion argues that the Labour Appeal Court’s formalistic approach misapplies established interpretive principles, creates insurmountable barriers for vulnerable workers and conflicts with South Africa’s obligations under ILO Conventions 87 and 98. Legislative reform is proposed.

This article identifies challenges surrounding the legal regulation of trade union recognition with specific reference to the concept of ‘workplace’ as the constituency within which the majority rules. The definition of ‘workplace’ in the South African Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995 creates the potential for minority interests to be ignored and hinders even majority unions seeking recognition, especially where the workplace is dispersed across different locations. This predicament, and the harsh effect and potential dangers of excluding minority voices in the labour context, has also been recognised by the Constitutional Court. This article considers two factors central to Canada’s independently determined ‘appropriate bargaining unit’: accommodating special or significant minority interests and addressing recognition in the context of multi-location employers. Although the Canadian legal system (like the South African one) favours majority unions, this article seeks to show Canadian law shows greater awareness of the potential unfairness of unqualified or misapplied majoritarianism. It highlights Canada’s independently determined bargaining unit as the constituency for majority rule and concludes that this model may offer a more appropriate framework for South Africa.

This article evaluates the concepts of con-arb (conciliation-arbitration) and med-arb (mediation-arbitration) as dispute resolution mechanisms in labour law, with specific focus on their implications for procedural fairness in Tanzania. While con-arb is firmly established in South African labour jurisprudence, and med-arb has gained traction in comparative dispute. Med-arb as a method of labour dispute resolution in Tanzania is mainly conducted under the Labour Institutions (Mediation and Arbitration) Rules G.N No. 64/2007 and the Labour Institutions Act Cap.300 R.E 2023. However, there are both legal and procedural challenges in its application. These include the absence of clear provisions in the Employment and Labour Relations Act Cap. 366 R.E 2023 as a principal legislation in labour dispute in Tanzania leading to inconsistencies between the principal Act and subsidiary Rules. In contrast, South Africa’s con-arb under the Labour Relations Act No. 66 of 1995 and the Rules for the Conduct of Proceedings before the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration 2023 incorporates defined procedures, including objection rights, mandatory notice and application in certain disputes. The article points out that these gaps in Tanzania hinder fairness, predictability and efficiency in labour dispute resolution. It calls for legislative alignment between the principal and subsidiary laws, clearer procedural rules and strengthening of the CMA through resources, training and systematic documentation.

“Diplomacy at Work: The South African Worker, U.S. Multinationals, and Transnational Racial Solidarity” examines the history of corporate reform and anti-apartheid activism through the lens of South African labor and global worker movements. It argues that Black workers in apartheid South Africa repurposed U.S. corporate codes—especially the Sullivan Principles—as instruments of resistance. The labor movement transformed reformist rhetoric into tools for collective action and transnational worker solidarity. Drawing on oral histories, trade union archives, corporate reports, and government records in both the United States and South Africa, the dissertation reveals how workers used weak corporate reforms to pressure multinational companies, connect with U.S. labor allies, and challenge the violence of apartheid from the shop-floor. In doing so, it bridges business, labor, and diplomatic history to show that workers helped shape global debates over corporate ethics and U.S. foreign policy in the late Cold War era. Diplomacy at Work thus recasts South African labor as a central force in the transnational struggle against apartheid.

This case note critically analyses the Labour Court’s decision in JDJ Diagnostics (Pty) Ltd v Michael Kruger and Others under Case No: D705/2023 delivered on 30 April 2025 (JDJ Diagnostics), which highlights the procedural firmness required in applications to stay the enforcement of arbitration awards under the Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995 (LRA). JDJ Diagnostics’ failure to substantiate its claim of urgency, comply with section 145(8), or justify nonconformity under section 145(3) led to the dismissal of its urgent application. The case illustrates the judiciary’s firm stance against abuse of court processes in the aftermath of the 2014 amendment of the LRA, which shifted toward formalisation in review procedures. Drawing on case law and scholarly publications, the case note explores how the court’s reasoning reflects broader trends in labour dispute resolution, reinforcing the binding nature of arbitration awards and the evidentiary burden on employers seeking to delay enforcement. The judgment confirms that the furnishing of security is no longer discretionary but foundational, marking a continued evolution towards enforcement, fairness, and efficiency in the speedy resolution of disputes in the South African labour law landscape.

ABSTRACT This paper examines employment transitions in the South African labour market. Using the Post‐Apartheid Labour Market Series, it analyses flows between the formal sector, informal sector and unemployment, paying specific attention to how these flows differ during recessions. It explicitly considers heterogeneity within the informal sector by separately accounting for wage employment and self‐employment, as well as upper‐tier and lower‐tier informal sector segments. Transition probabilities are estimated using dynamic discrete choice models, and the extent to which transitions affect changes in real wages is estimated using a linear model. The results provide evidence of heterogeneity within the informal sector and segmentation between wage employment and self‐employment. They also show a lag in the employment impacts following a recession. Finally, the paper provides suggestive evidence that the upper‐tier segment of the informal sector acts as a buffer during recessionary periods by absorbing labour that would otherwise be unemployed or relegated to precarious lower‐tier informal employment.

This article critically analyses the structural challenges that hinder access to justice in the South African Labour Court and Labour Appeal Court. Eschewing scholarly debates about access to justice, this article adopts a functional approach, construing access to justice as the ability to access courts effectively. Anchored in section 34 of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to a fair and timely adjudication of disputes, the article investigates whether the composition of the bench, the availability of judicial personnel, the physical infrastructure and the administrative capacity of these courts enable meaningful access to justice. Drawing on legislative frameworks, judicial statistics, academic literature and field observations, the article reveals that the chronic shortage of judges, inadequate court infrastructure, limited administrative support and overreliance on acting appointments have led to systemic delays. It argues that these deficiencies amount to a constructive denial of the constitutional right to access the courts. The article concludes with policy recommendations, including legislative reform, the expansion of the Labour Court and the Labour Appeal Court, infrastructural investment and the institutional separation of the Labour Court and the Labour Appeal Court, to ensure their alignment with the constitutional imperative of accessible, fair and expeditious justice.

This study aimed to critically evaluate the fairness of mandatory retirement policies under South African law and compare them with the legal frameworks in the United States (USA) and Canada, where retirement age dismissals are approached differently. This desktop study used a comparative legal research methodology to analyze statutory provisions, case law, and academic scholarship to evaluate the protections against age-based dismissals in these jurisdictions. According to the findings, South African labour law permits retirement age dismissals if appropriate; they may still be contested as automatically unfair under the Labour Relations Act if they lack a legitimate rationale. In contrast, the USA and Canada impose stricter anti-discrimination measures, making mandatory retirement more difficult to enforce. The study recommends reforms to South African retirement laws to align more closely with international best practices, ensuring greater protection for older workers. This research contributes to the discourse on labour rights and age discrimination, offering insights for policymakers, employers, and legal practitioners on balancing retirement policies with fundamental employment protections. Keywords: Automatically Unfair Dismissal, Retirement Age, Age Discrimination, Comparative Labor Law

This paper interrogated the legal, cultural and ethical tensions that arise when cultural and religious rituals are performed within South Africa’s public sector workspaces. It critically examined how the constitutional rights to culture, religion and belief, enshrined in sections 15, 30 and 31 of the Bill of Rights, intersect with the demands of professional conduct, public accountability, and labour relations in state institutions. In multicultural democratic workplaces, state officials increasingly encounter the delicate task of balancing constitutional entitlements with the operational imperatives of public service delivery. Drawing on the Human Rights-Based Approach, this paper examined whether workplace rituals, particularly those involving implicit or explicit pressure on colleagues to participate, constitute a violation of freedom of belief or an unjustified limitation on other fundamental rights such as dignity, equality, and freedom from discrimination. Using the controversial case of the eMkhondo South African Social Security Agency office as a focal point, the paper provided a doctrinal analysis of legislation, judicial precedent, and scholarly commentary, while exploring the extent to which South African labour law provides sufficient guidance for managing cultural plurality in professional spaces. This study highlights a critical knowledge gap in state policy: the absence of institutionalised cultural accommodation frameworks in public employment settings. This policy vacuum often leads to inconsistent practices and potential legal conflicts that compromise both workers’ rights and service delivery imperatives. This article argues for the development of constitutionally compliant, context-sensitive workplace cultural policies that allow for reasonable accommodation without undermining administrative functionality. Keywords: Rituals, Cultural Practices, Professional Conduct, Labour Relations, South African Government Offices

This paper determines the views of TVET College engineering graduates about how the engineering curriculum prepares them for employment opportunities and entrepreneurial endeavours in the South African labour market. A questionnaire was completed by purposive sampling of 210 unemployed NC (V) engineering graduates from three public TVET Colleges in Gauteng, South Africa. The study used descriptive statistics to analyse the data. Results revealed that the NC (V) engineering curriculum does not adequately equip TVET College engineering graduates for the demands of the engineering industry. Additionally, results showed that the TVET College curriculum should be revised in technological advancement and industrial contexts. These insights could enable vocational institutions and policymakers to revise the engineering curricula and prepare graduates for employment prospects while also propelling global economic growth and development.

PurposeThis article concerns itself with generating a means of understanding platform-mediated work in South Africa through how it is organized on OnlyFans. It explores how Black South African youth are using digital platforms to negotiate their labour market participation in a country that has one of the highest unemployment rates in the world.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is derived from fieldwork conducted between 2022 and 2023 in pursuance of a doctorate, in African Feminist Studies, at the University of Cape Town. The methods, such as in-depth semi-structured interviews, employed fall within Qualitative Research. Data were analysed through the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) – which is theoretically grounded in Hermeneutics (the interpretation) and Phenomenology (of experience).FindingsThe findings highlight the work done to create content and the social media integration that goes into building a following, marketing content, cultivating relationships with subscribers and managing online presence across social media platforms. This interrelated process requires both entrepreneurial acumen and digital marketplace literacies because platform or Gig economies shift managerial responsibilities of developing performance areas to the workers. The paper contrasts the promise of autonomy and empowerment with the realities of competition and algorithmic control by highlighting the importance of reputation management, the complexities of trust, and the persistent need to balance platform work with other jobs and domestic responsibilities. Finally, the article considers the potential for delayed gratification through residual income generation on OnlyFans. It posits the possibility of the revenue payable to creators accumulating beyond initial distribution challenges the overarching theme of income insecurity within platforms, because the services platform labourers offer can have more than one utility value, when their labouring circulates beyond the point of initial sale to the established audience, further drawing in new audiences who consume the labouring in perpetuity and accruing residuals that can enrich platform labourers in an uncertain future date.Research limitations/implicationsThe stigma that is, unfortunately, attached to sex work likely influenced who was willing to participate in this research and the extent to which participants were willing to share certain aspects of their experiences. Participants’ decisions to use pseudonyms across digital sexual spaces and to selectively disclose their OnlyFans work to their interpersonal networks highlight the sensitivity of the topic and the potential for social desirability bias in their responses. They might have been hesitant to fully disclose negative experiences or the full extent of risks they face due to fear of judgement or repercussions.Practical implicationsThe research highlights the need for Digital Marketplace Literacies to inform regulation. Cultivating these literacies could potentially help workers connect their precarity to platform affordances. The research challenges the notion of absolute precarity by raising the existence of continuous income generation through residuals. The research criticizes how platforms provide economic opportunities, particularly for marginalized youth who bear the burdens of social reproduction but face systemic exclusion from the formal economy, whilst also making platform labourers adhere to stringent terms and conditions, algorithmic management and constant pressure to labour online and offline.Originality/valueTo date, there is no research on how the emergence and growth of OnlyFans is occurring in Sub-Saharan Africa. This article seeks to fill that gap in by exploring the lived experiences of OnlyFans creators domiciled in South Africa, who create content and distribute it across digital sexual spaces, to understand how the opportunities and risks that have been associated with platform and Gig economies manifest in this context. It elaborates on how OnlyFans content creators establish themselves against the institutional cultures of Gig and platform economies which embed informal labour dynamics into a landscape that is further structured by rigid terms of service. To do so, they must balance the risks, such as hypervisibility, algorithmic management and unpaid labour, posed with the opportunities, such as flexibility, autonomy and residual income, presented by the digital sexual spaces marketplace. The overall positive appraisal of OnlyFans, as a preferred employer, is directly linked to how segmented the South African labour market is. That is, economic opportunities presented by platforms make it difficult for participants to associate their precarity with platform affordances. Thus, there is need to cultivate digital marketplace literacies in ways that can inform regulating the labour market as it shifts between informality and formality and transforms due to hybridization.

Sexual harassment in the workplace is a burning issue, both in Kenya and South Africa. Both Kenyan and South African labour laws outline the specific elements or prerequisites that must be met for the conduct of the harasser to be considered sexual harassment. One such element is the presence of unwanted or offensive conduct by the harasser. Nevertheless, in Kenya, enforcing this element is still challenging, and there has been a lack of uniformity in the courts over whose viewpoint should determine if the behaviour is unwanted or offensive – that is, whether from the harasser’s or the complainant’s perspective. This issue is exacerbated by a lack of extensive research in Kenyan employment law on this element. This article presents a critical analysis of the “unwelcome or offensive” element in determining cases of sexual harassment in the Kenyan employment setting using lessons from South African legislation. The results from the analysis indicate that in the Kenyan context harassers often employ this element as a defence to argue that the complainant’s behaviour, if examined carefully, demonstrates their acceptance of the harasser’s conduct. In essence, this leads courts to scrutinise the behaviour of the complainant for any slight indication that the conduct was unwelcome. The underlying implication is that the complainant is subjected to a trial-like process, diverting attention away from the conduct and behaviour of the alleged perpetrator of the sexual harassment. In navigating such sensitive terrain, there is a need for the Employment Act to be amended and to consider adopting similar tests to those in the South African 2022 Code of Good Practice on the Prevention of Elimination of Harassment in the Workplace.

ABSTRACTThis paper examines women's responsibility for social reproduction in South Africa. Drawing from a range of studies that analyze quantitative data, it considers how distinctive characteristics of South Africa's socio‐economic landscape shape the nature of this responsibility. These characteristics include rates of paternal coresidence and marriage that are amongst the lowest in the world, unemployment and inequality rates that are amongst the highest, and continuing patterns of individual labor migration with race remaining a significant socio‐economic stratifier. Given these features, women are not only most often the providers of caring labor in the household they are often also the financial providers. Women are responsible for social reproduction even when they are not wives or mothers, and this responsibility limits their access and returns to paid work. Gender asymmetries in who carries the economic costs of social reproduction are highlighted by evidence of both a motherhood earnings penalty and a male marital earnings premium in the South African labor market. In addition to economic measures, the paper reviews research on the noneconomic costs of social reproduction including life satisfaction and depression, and it highlights the importance of recognizing intersectionality in the well‐being of women.

This study investigates historical and contemporary challenges faced by Zimbabwean ex-miners in securing compensation on occupational diseases contracted in South African gold mines. Zimbabwean labour migrancy to South Africa was brokered by the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association (WNLA) and was placed on various mines in Transvaal and the Orange Free State. South African gold mines frequently repatriated sick miners in a way that was considered to be the industry’s medication system. Repatriation of sick miners was a capitalist method of avoiding compensating miners who had contracted diseases like Tuberculosis and silicosis. Contemporary obstacles to compensation are hinged on legal challenges, administrative hurdles and the effects of COVID-19. This paper fills an academic void on the lives of former migrant miners and the compensation challenges they face. The study gleaned information from WNLA documents archived at the University of Johannesburg, Zimbabwean newspapers, oral testimonies of ex-miners, secondary literature on South African labour history and the Tshiamiso Trust website.