The CCMA issued an Urgent Directive In Respect Of Access To The Commission For Conciliation, Mediation And Arbitration on 8 May 2020 in line with the Disaster Management Act.
The directives are for all companies is basically, to go digital.
For example, when referring disputes to the CCMA, “Parties will not be able to submit physical (hard copies) or completed referral forms and must use email.”
Furthermore, when dealing with disputes the use of an “electronic signature or electronic confirmation process will be accepted if such proof can be stored safely and retrieved and printed when needed.”1
As South Africans, we are all aware of the common excuse that “I didn’t receive that email” or the headlines about a dodgy email being the stumbling block to an otherwise watertight case.
Don’t be the victim of your recipient claiming that an email was not delivered, or that “information contained in the email could have been altered”2. In a dispute, there is nothing more frustrating than working through a “he said, she said” scenario.
To comply with the new regulations and navigate your way through this turbulent time, we suggest you use a third-party witness to deliver important notices. Registered Communication’s Registered Email and Registered SMS services do just that. The process is simple and the outcome is a registered certificate with an audit trail of the communication to give you peace of mind.
Sources:
1Urgent Directive In Respect Of Access To The Commission For Conciliation, Mediation And Arbitration Section 4.2 and 6.3
2The dodgy ’email’ at the centre of Danny Jordaan’s case against the Iron Duke