LABOUR LAW: INPUT SOUGHT ON ESSENTIAL SERVICES COMMITTEE PROPOSALS

LABOUR LAW: INPUT SOUGHT ON ESSENTIAL SERVICES COMMITTEE PROPOSALS

• 23 January 2026
• Labour Law
• SA Legal Academy

In anticipation of nationwide hearings, the Essential Services Committee has gazetted a notice calling for input by 19 February 2026 on three sets of proposals.

Against that backdrop, the following services could soon be designated ‘essential’ under the 1995 Labour Relations Act:

• the ‘corrective maintenance of critical telecommunication infrastructure’, and
• certain work associated with the aviation industry.

This is noting that the Act’s section 213 defines an essential service as one that, if interrupted, would ‘endanger the life, personal safety or health of the whole or any part of the population’. In that context, according to a Commission for Conciliation, Mediation & Arbitration (CCMA) publication, ‘no person may partake in a strike if that person is engaged in an essential service’.

The notice also points to the possible variation or cancellation of essential service designations affecting:

• the wholesale supply of cash (in place since March 2020)
• ‘the manufacture, supply and distribution of vaccines and or biologicals; anaesthetics; antiretrovirals to treat (the) HIV virus; immunosuppressants; Covid-19-related products; and antibiotics’ (in place since November 2022 and prompted by the Covid-19 pandemic), and
• the manufacture and supply of chronic medicines (in place since November 2022).

Please click the links below for more information:

• Government Gazette notice
• CCMA publication

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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