Channel Chat: Load Shedding and Payment of Wages and Salaries

LOAD SHEDDING AND PAYMENT OF WAGES AND SALARIES

The below 11 (Eleven) answers to the questions refer:

1. Can you not pay employees because of load shedding?
   If the employer expects the employees to be at work at a specific time and on a specific day, and the employees comply with these requirements, the employer is obliged to pay them for that time. This is regardless of whether the employees were able to perform their duties or not. In turn, an employee has the duty to place their personal services at the employer’s disposal.
2. Load shedding makes it physically impossible to work; must wages and salaries still be paid?
   Why does “no work, no pay” not apply: It only applies where an employee has elected not to render their services to an employer, including but not limited to sick leave, annual leave, maternity leave, and or family responsibility leave; there is no obligation to remunerate the employee.
3. Can the load shedding times be converted into unpaid mealtimes?
   Yes, by agreement, but the Basic Conditions of Employment Act requires that an employer must pay employees for any lunch break in excess of 75 (Seventy-five) minutes.
4. Can employees work extra hours to make up for the production time lost in load shedding?
   Yes, but it needs to be by agreement. Any time worked over the normal working hours (with or without load shedding) is overtime and paid at overtime rates. Overtime is also not compulsory, so employees cannot be made to work overtime.
5. Can employers and employees form an agreement that payment will be suspended during load shedding?
   The employees, however, will have to agree to this. If they do not, the changes cannot be implemented unilaterally.
6. Can employees be instructed to do work other than their usual responsibilities during the load shedding down time? 
   Yes, but they must be able to actually do it, instructed by somebody with authority to do so, and the instruction must be safe to execute.  The instruction does not have to be within the usual job description or daily responsibilities.
7. Do the rules change for employees working from home or a hybrid approach of on-site and at-home work?
   No.
8. Can employees be put on short time as a response to load shedding?
   Yes, but there is a process to follow, and there is an agreement required.  The main challenge is that the load shedding schedule is unreliable and constantly changing, making a structured short time difficult.
9. Can employees be asked to work from home and submit timesheets?
   Yes.
10. Can employees working from home be asked to work at company premises?
    Yes.
11. Can future contracts of employment include arrangements for load shedding, amongst other?
    Yes.