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RTMC‚ Tasima in a legal battle over employees

Gavel
Gavel

The breakup between the transport department and Tasima‚ the company which for 16 years operated the electronic National Transport Information System (eNaTIS)‚ has not been a clean one.

The transport department’s Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) finally took over the eNaTIS system in April this year.

It did not bargain on getting 79 employees and a R3.2-million wage bill.

Tasima had been managing the eNaTIS for the transport department for 16 years before the Constitutional Court ordered that it hand over the system to the RTMC in November last year.

The system was eventually taken over by the RTMC in April after Pretoria High Court judge Neil Tuchten ordered Tasima to vacate the premises from which it operated the eNaTIS system.

Tasima went to the Labour Court on an urgent basis in May to ask for an order declaring that the contracts of employment for the 79 employees be transferred automatically from Tasima to the RTMC.

Judge Anton Steenkamp declared in May that the contracts of employment of the 79 people were transferred automatically from Tasima to the RTMC in accordance with the Labour Relations Act.

He also ordered RTMC to pay the employees on a monthly basis from April 5‚ on or before the 25th‚ to the date of the final determination of the appeals in this case.

Section 197 of the Labour Relations Act provides that if a transfer of a business takes place‚ the new employer is automatically substituted in the place of the old employer in respect of all contracts of employment in existence immediately before the date of transfer.

RTMC is not happy with this and has been granted leave to appeal to the Labour Appeal Court.

However‚ Judge Steenkamp‚ in granting leave to appeal on June 5‚ said the order he made – that RTMC pay the 79 employees from April 5 until the final determination of whether RTMC should absorb Tasima’s workforce –was not appealable.

In another case‚ RTMC has also applied to the Constitutional Court to appeal against an order from the high court in Pretoria in February‚ which requires it to pay Tasima about R30m for work done by Tasima before November 2016.

 

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