The Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration
("CCMA") has recently announced certain amendments to its
rules and forms that took effect on 24 April 2023. In the first
instance, these changes appear to be routine, as section 115 of the
Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995 ("LRA") mentions that the
CCMA must review its rules every second year to ensure that the
rules comply with new legislation. Another reason for this review
was necessitated by recent case law developments, particularly in
decisions laid down by the Labour Court ("LC") and Labour
Appeal Court ("LAC").
Firstly, have abolished the option to serve and file documents
and correspondence on the CCMA by facsimile. Rule 1 only mentions
addresses, telephone numbers and email addresses as realisable ways
to contact the CCMA. A similar amendment is repeated in Rule 2(3)
and Rule 7(2), where the use of facsimiles is no longer mentioned.
However, parties may still serve documents to each other by way
