There is a distinction between the capacity to do work or ‘Labour Power’ and the physical act of working,’ Labour’. However when it comes to Eskom load shedding the recent experiences of a number of companies is that both the capacity and the act of working become one and the same-very limited.
Now in defence of the employee, with the reliance that modern business has on electricity and technology there are certain limitations, however when in bad weather “all hands on deck” and just as the employer requires to make alternative arrangements the employee should also not act as if they were plugged into the mains and slump in a heap when Eskom decide it’s ‘lights out’.
The recent power outages by Eskom and warning of further load shedding to be expected and with greater severity, has raised certain performance, productivity and employment cost dynamics questions which till now have not been material enough to address but with the frequency and length of the period without electricity in the work place this has changed.
The elephant in the room many are thinking about and few brave enough to acknowledge is firstly the labour relations question of whether employees can insist on payment of their salaries or wages for the duration of the outages & secondly the Human Resource interventions available to insure continued productivity of the staff when computers & lights are off.
The normal rule is that the employer has an obligation to pay if the employee makes his or her services available to the employer. The obligation to pay is not dependent on any work actually being performed. The employer therefore has an obligation to pay even if the employee’s services cannot be utilized due to circumstances beyond the employer’s control, such as during the power outages experienced recently.
Now before all the employers decide to move to Australia, (the last one no longer needing to turn out the lights), there are interventions and pro-active Human Resources practices that can mitigate loss of revenue and productivity which urgently need to be considered.
The historic struggle has often been between the worker and the employer, amusing enough Eskom has the trump card- ‘Power to the People’