12 - Competition Law and Labour Law

Summary

South African competition law has played a modest role in the arena of labour relations in response to agreements between companies relating to employees’ salaries, terms of compensation, employee benefits, and undertakings not to solicit or hire employees from companies that could be considered to be competitors. By contrast, the South African Constitution affords a comprehensive umbrella of rights protection to workers. These rights have been supplemented by far reaching provisions in a chapter of the Competition Act of 1998 which sets out the regulatory framework for mergers and which through its public interest provisions protect workers who are employed by the merging companies. This chapter examines this interface between these two areas of law. It locates this regulatory framework read as a whole within the context of traditional forms of employment .In turn this prompts an examination the question of the role of competition law in response to the changing nature of work which falls outside the scope of the constitutionally protected area of labour relations. In turn this raises questions about competition law and the regulation of these new forms of labour relations.