Jail bird demands job and back-pay after 7 years

Employers warned to follow proper termination procedures ED RICHARDSON EMPLOYERS HAVE been warned to ensure that they have followed proper procedures when terminating the services of a worker who has been put in jail. This follows a case where an employee was arrested and sentenced to a jail term of seven years. On his release at the end of the seven-year period, he returned to work and, with the support of his union, is demanding not only his job back, but possibly payment of his wages for the period that he has been absent. “Whether the employment contract was still in existence at the end of the seven-year period would depend on what action the employer had taken,” says Port Elizabeth labour specialist Howard Warneke. “Although the employee was clearly unable to tender his services for this period, it would not have been sufficient for the employer to simply assume that the contract was therefore automatically terminated,” he says. Unless the employer had specifically abandoned the contract due to the employee’s inability to tender his services, it would merely have been suspended until the employee was able to return to work. The back-payment of wages issues is a little more clear-cut. Assuming that the employer had not ended the contract, in order to understand whether the employee’s claim for wages was legitimate, we need to consider the fundamental nature of the employment contract. Warneke says any employment contract is basically an agreement where one party [the employee] renders services to the other party [the employer] in exchange for wages. Before an employee can claim wages for any period, it is therefore necessary for him to have tendered his services for that period.