Interstate Bus Lines (Pty) Ltd v Venter NO (JR1840/11) [2015] ZALCJHB 269 (20 August 2015) per Myburgh AJ.
The employer’s incentive scheme was dependent on performance and based on a sliding scale. If employees participated in any unprotected strike action they could forfeit a portion or the whole of the incentive payment. There was a ‘picket’ at the premises during a meal break. Final written warnings were issued and they forfeited one third of the incentive payment. A dispute was referred in terms of s 186(2)(a) of the LRA alleging an unfair labour practice relating to the provision of ‘benefits’.
The arbiter awarded compensation. On review the Labour Court found that the arbiter had exceeded his powers by changing the nature of the dispute and set it aside.
In passing it was suggested that ‘the word “work” in the strike definition has been interpreted as including a lawful and reasonable instruction, with the result that where employees refuse to carry out such an instruction (even in their own time) they, in effect, refuse to work for the purposes of the strike definition’.