NUMSA obo Ramothibe and 55 Others v Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration and Others

NUMSA, acting on behalf of Ramothibe and 55 other employees, applied for leave to appeal against a Labour Court judgment delivered on 5 August 2024. The underlying dispute concerned the dismissal of a large group of employees following a strike. The dismissals were challenged on both procedural and substantive fairness grounds. Procedurally, the employees attended their disciplinary hearing but were excluded when the employer and chairperson decided to proceed at a different venue without notifying the employees or their union and without considering alternatives. Substantively, the employer relied on doctrines of collective liability (team liability, derivative misconduct, or common purpose) based solely on the employees’ admitted participation in a strike, despite no individual perpetrators of misconduct being identified. The present judgment dealt only with whether leave to appeal should be granted against the earlier Labour Court judgment.

The application for leave to appeal was dismissed. No order as to costs was made.

The case reinforces the stringent threshold for granting leave to appeal in labour matters and underscores the policy of limiting appeals to cases with genuine prospects of success. It also confirms that mere participation in a strike, without identification of individual misconduct or proper application of collective liability doctrines, cannot justify dismissal, and that such settled principles do not ordinarily warrant appellate reconsideration.