Community Health Workers Must Be Made Permanent, Rules Labour Court

The Johannesburg Labour Court has overturned a bargaining council ruling that the recurring temporary contracts for community health workers were legal.

• The Johannesburg Labour Court has ruled that community health workers must be deemed permanent government employees.
• The decision affects about 50,000 people who have been on recurring contracts without job security and benefits.
• Acting Judge Ashley Cook overturned a previous bargaining council ruling that these temporary contracts were legal.

The Johannesburg Labour Court has ruled that community health workers, who for years have been employed by the health department on recurring fixed-term contracts, must be deemed permanent government employees.

The National Health and Allied Workers Union (NEHAWU), on behalf of its members, has successfully overturned a previous bargaining council ruling that the temporary contracts were legal.

There are an estimated 50,000 community health workers. The recurring fixed-term contracts left them without job security and other benefits of permanent employment.

The issue was first ventilated before the Public Health and Social Development Sectoral Bargaining Council in 2021. The commissioner found that the contracts were permitted by the Public Service Act, were concluded through collective agreements with unions, and were justified in terms of the Labour Relations Act (LRA) as they were funded by an “external source for a limited period” – the National Treasury.

NEHAWU took the ruling on review. The matter was argued before Johannesburg Labour Court Acting Judge Ashley Cook in October last year. He handed down his ruling on 23 January 2025, overturning the bargaining council’s findings.

On the issue of “external funding” – the legal justification in the LRA for fixing the contract terms – Judge Cook said the department had correctly submitted that it was not disputed that the funding for the employment of the community health workers was a conditional grant approved by national treasury on an annual basis.

“However, what was in dispute was whether the conditional grant was from an external source. The department receives all revenue from the National Treasury,” Judge Cook said.

As funding for all public servants was sourced from the Treasury, this meant that it was not an “external source”, and therefore the department could not rely on it as a “justifiable reason” to deviate from the provisions of the LRA.

The contracts of the community health workers were therefore, in terms of the Act, deemed to be of an “indefinite duration”, the judge said, setting aside the arbitration award.

He made no order as to costs.

NEHAWU welcomed the ruling. In a statement, it said community health workers had been on perennial contractual renewals without a clear explanation from the Department of Health.

“The court determined that it is common cause to all parties that there is a permanent need for the work tendered by community health workers as conceded by the counsel for the state.”

The union said it would continue to fight for the “permanent absorption” of all the workers and would be meeting with its members to advise on how it would ensure the implementation of the judgment.

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