Know Your Rights
Contractor or employee, minimum wage, leave, dismissal and the CCMA, in plain English.
Whether you are working for someone or putting on a crew of your own, South African labour law sets the floor. The Basic Conditions of Employment Act covers your working conditions, the Labour Relations Act covers dismissals and disputes, the National Minimum Wage Act sets the pay floor, and UIF and COIDA are the safety nets if you lose work or get hurt. The CCMA is where disputes get resolved without a lawyer. This hub explains what these laws actually give you, and the one question that decides which of them apply to you: are you a contractor or an employee?
Contractor or employee: the question that decides everything
Your label does not decide your status; the reality of the relationship does. If someone controls your hours, tells you how to do the work, provides the tools, and you work only for them, you are likely an employee in law even if you both call it 'subcontracting' or you invoice them. Employees get the full protection of the BCEA and the LRA: minimum wage, leave, notice, protection from unfair dismissal, UIF and COIDA. A genuine independent contractor runs their own business, carries their own risk, works for several clients and is not under the other party's day-to-day control; they fall outside most of that protection and sort out their own tax and cover. This matters in both directions: if you take on a 'subbie' who is really an employee, you carry employer duties (UIF, COIDA, the minimum wage); and if you are treated as a contractor but worked like an employee, you may still be able to claim employee rights at the CCMA.
The National Minimum Wage
The National Minimum Wage Act sets the lowest legal hourly rate for almost all workers. From 1 March 2026 the national minimum wage is R30.23 per hour. It applies whether the worker is paid weekly, monthly or per task; you cannot contract out of it and you cannot average it away over a busy and a quiet week. Apprentices and learners on a registered learnership are paid on a separate sliding scale set by NQF level rather than the flat minimum. If you employ anyone, the minimum wage is the floor under everything else; pay below it and the worker can claim the shortfall.
What the BCEA gives every employee
The Basic Conditions of Employment Act sets the standard terms of employment. The headline entitlements are: a normal working week (with overtime paid at a premium by agreement), 21 consecutive days of annual leave a year, 30 days of paid sick leave over a three-year cycle, three days of family responsibility leave, four months of maternity leave, and notice on termination of one week in the first six months, two weeks up to a year, and four weeks after that. Retrenchment carries severance pay of one week per completed year of service. There is an earnings threshold (R269,600.90 a year from 1 May 2026): workers earning above it lose the automatic rights to overtime pay and certain hours protections, because the law assumes they can bargain for themselves. Every employee must also get written particulars of employment, basically a contract, when they start.
UIF and COIDA: the safety nets
If you employ people you must register them for two funds. UIF (the Unemployment Insurance Fund) pays a worker a portion of their wage if they lose their job, and also covers maternity, illness and a death benefit for dependants. Both you and the employee contribute one percent of wages each, and the contribution is capped at a monthly earnings ceiling. COIDA (the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act) covers a worker who is injured or made ill by the job: medical costs and a portion of lost earnings, paid from the Compensation Fund, which you pay an annual assessment into. COIDA is a no-fault scheme, and because it covers work injuries it replaces an employee's right to sue you for them, so being registered and up to date protects you as much as the worker. Both are legal requirements the moment you take on staff, not optional extras.
When it goes wrong: the CCMA
If an employee is dismissed and believes it was unfair, or there is a dispute about wages, hours or unfair treatment, the matter usually goes to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration, the CCMA. It is free to refer a dispute, you do not need a lawyer, and most cases start with conciliation (a facilitated attempt to settle) and move to arbitration (a binding decision) if that fails. A dismissal must be both substantively fair (a good reason) and procedurally fair (a proper process: investigation, a hearing, a chance for the worker to respond). The tight deadline catches people out: an unfair dismissal must be referred to the CCMA within 30 days. Whether you are the worker who was let go or the employer defending a dismissal, the same rule applies, get the process right and keep records, because at the CCMA the paperwork usually decides it.