It is very common for certain words to be used interchangeably and erroneously in the context of HR. A frequent example involves the terms “off day” and “rest day.” These are often used to refer to days when employees are not expected to be at work, but they do not mean the same thing. Rest days are mandatory days off granted to every employee after working consecutively for five to six days. Off days, on the other hand, are days off given to employees to compensate for working during a paid public holiday. Another common mistake is assuming that domestic workers are the same as part-time employees. This raises the question: what does labor law say about these distinctions? Are they really one and the same?
The current notion
Domestic workers can come in different forms: some are live-in, some work from morning until the afternoon (usually for 8 to 9 hours a day), while others come to perform specific tasks and then leave. Those who work for a specific period, on certain days, or for particular tasks are often considered part-time employees and may even be referred to as such instead of domestic workers. Part-time employees, on the other hand, are generally defined as workers engaged temporarily to perform a specific task or to work for a short period. This distinction explains the confusion between these two terms. But what does the law say about these classifications?
The correct stance
Section 2 of the Employment Act defines an employee as “any person who has, either before or after the commencement of this Act, entered into a contract of employment for the hire of his labour.” It is worth noting that an employment contract can either be verbal or written, the verbal ones are mostly common where domestic workers are concerned. The same section of the same Act continues to define domestic workers as “a house servant, a garden servant or a motor car driver employed in or in connection with the domestic services of any private premises.” It is evident the Act does not necessarily speak to hours of work but rather the type of work the concerned employee would be employed to do. The Act goes even further by outlining what additionally applies to domestic workers under the domestic workers regulations. Part-time employees on the other hand are not defined in the Employment Act therefore we will make use of case law instead. In the case of Motlapula Sebutle v Tshoganetso Ketshabang the definition of a part-time employee was derived from the labour glossary to mean “employees performing part-time work.”
Part-time work is defined by the same source to mean “the employment of an individual for fewer hours of work, than statutory, collectively agreed or usual working hours, e.g., morning work. Part-time work can be performed on a regular basis and can last for an indefinite period of time, in which case it is called permanent part-time work. Part-time work can also be performed on a temporary basis.” The court in the previously mentioned case states that a part-time domestic employee exists, and it identified the applicant as one. This therefore means that domestic workers can be part-time employees but that can only be the case if they satisfy the above-mentioned conditions. This does not mean they would in any way divorce the title of “domestic worker” but rather that the two would be combined. They would still be entitled to what domestic workers are entitled to more so, that the Employment Act does not have any regulations that speak to part-time employees specifically.
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