Dismissal means that:

• An employer terminates a contract of employment with or without notice
  • With notice means the employer tells the employee to leave work after working for the required term of notice as prescribed in the contract of employment. The employee gets paid for the time he or she worked, plus any leave pay (if this is owing).
  • Without notice means the employee leaves immediately and is not paid out notice. Dismissal without notice is called ‘summary dismissal’. Whilst summary dismissal might take place where an employee is guilty of a very serious act (for example theft), it will still be procedurally unfair if a fair hearing has not been held before the dismissal.
  • Where notice is to be paid, the notice pay must be what is prescribed as notice in the contract of employment, for example, 1 week’s pay instead of 1 week’s notice. The payment must include the value of payment in kind if this applies to a particular sector. Employees must therefore get wages for the hours worked, plus any leave pay plus payment in lieu of notice. If the employee has been summarily dismissed (with fair reasons and following a fair hearing), this means the employee has to leave immediately and the employer does not have to make any payment in lieu of notice.
• A contract employee whose fixed-term contract is suddenly ended or renewed on less favourable terms, where the employee expected the contract to be renewed because it has often been renewed before or because an expectation exists that the employment will be ongoing.
• a woman who is not taken back into her job after her maternity leave
• An employer dismisses a number of employees for some reason (for example for being on strike) and offers to re-employ one or more but not all.
• An employee who was forced to walk out or resign because the employer made the working environment impossible to tolerate.
• The employee leaves his/her work (with notice or without notice) because a new employer has taken over the business and is not paying the employee the same wages and conditions of employment are not the same as he/she enjoyed before.
• Employees have been retrenched. The employer must pay the employee severance pay of at least 1 week’s remuneration for every full year that the employee worked for the employer. The payment must include the value of payment in kind. So the employee must get wages for the hours worked, plus any leave pay, plus notice or payment in lieu of notice, plus severance pay.

Employees in these circumstances are entitled to fair dismissal reasons and fair dismissal procedures under the LRA. An employee could claim unfair dismissal through the CCMA or relevant Bargaining Council.