CCMA referral checklist

A referral to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) is free, and you are allowed to run it yourself. What trips people up is almost never the law. It is arriving at the deadline with no folder, no employer address and no proof that anything was sent. This checklist is not a document you file anywhere. It is the fortnight of work before you complete LRA Form 7.11, broken into boxes you can tick.

What this document does and when to use it

The checklist has no legal effect. No commissioner will read it and no employer will see it. Its only reader is you, and its only job is to make sure that when you sit down with LRA Form 7.11, every fact that form asks for is already in front of you on paper.

Start it the day you are dismissed, or the day the unfair labour practice happens. An unfair labour practice covers things like an unfair suspension, a demotion, or unfair conduct about promotion, training or benefits. Under the Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995 you have 30 calendar days from the date of dismissal to refer a dismissal dispute, and 90 days to refer an unfair labour practice. Those clocks run whether or not you are appealing internally, waiting for a final payslip, or hoping somebody will change their mind.

It is deliberately wider than the form, asking for payslips, warnings and witness numbers that Form 7.11 never mentions, because arbitration may follow conciliation. What you gather now, while you still have your work email, is what you will not be begging a former employer for later. If your complaint has not yet reached the point of dismissal, this is the wrong document: use the grievance letter to your employer first.

Before you send it: get these facts straight

Four facts decide whether your referral is accepted or bounced back.

The date of dismissal. Normally your last day of employment, not the day of the disciplinary hearing and not the date printed on the outcome letter. If you were paid in lieu of notice, the date is still the day the employment ended. Get this wrong and your deadline is wrong. The CCMA deadline calculator does the counting.

The employer's full registered legal name. Not the name on the shopfront. Look at your contract, a payslip or your IRP5. A referral against a name that does not legally exist has to be corrected, and the correction takes weeks you do not have.

Whether the CCMA is the right forum. If a bargaining council covers your industry, the dispute goes to that council instead. Phone the CCMA on 0861 16 16 16 and check. Filing in the wrong place burns days.

What you actually want. In a dismissal the usual options are reinstatement, re-employment or compensation. Decide before you write, because the form asks and a vague answer weakens you at conciliation. How much compensation the CCMA can award sets out what is realistic.

Walking through it, step by step

Part 1 works out your deadline and puts it at the top of the page next to a working target five days earlier. That gap absorbs a lost copy of your ID or a long queue at the CCMA office. The last box deals with the reader who is already late: "I understand that I must apply for condonation, which means asking the CCMA to accept a late referral and explaining the delay." Condonation is an application you have to argue, and can lose.

Part 2 checks the forum and closes off a common worry: "referring a dispute to the CCMA is free. The CCMA charges nothing to accept a referral, to conciliate it, or to arbitrate it." If somebody has quoted you a filing fee, they are not the CCMA. How much the CCMA costs covers the costs that can still arise.

Part 3 captures the employer's details in exactly the form the referral needs them: legal name, physical address, and the "name and job title of the person who handles human resources or who signed the dismissal letter". Fill the square brackets in here, so that when you complete the form you are copying rather than remembering.

Part 4 is the document sweep, eleven lines running from your identity document to "names and contact numbers of anyone who saw what happened". Do it first and fast, because work accounts get closed and colleagues change numbers. The six payslips matter more than people expect, since your remuneration is the basis on which any compensation would be worked out.

Part 5 asks for your own timeline, one line per event with names and times, and adds the discipline that makes it useful: "It records what was said and done, not how unfair it felt." A commissioner cannot act on how you feel about a manager, but can act on the fact that you were handed the charge sheet twenty minutes before the hearing.

Part 6 is the form itself, walking the boxes Form 7.11 asks for: your details, the employer's details, the nature of the dispute, the date, the reason given, and the outcome you want. The instruction that saves the most trouble concerns your summary of the facts, "roughly half a page. It is a summary, not my evidence and not my closing argument." A long referral is not a strong referral.

Part 7 is service on the employer and Part 8 is filing with the CCMA, in that order, recording the method, the date, the person served and where the proof sits. The checklist says why: "A referral without proof of service is usually sent back."

Part 9 prepares you for conciliation, which is informal, private, without cross examination, and with legal representation generally not allowed. It also puts the question most people have not considered until a commissioner asks it: what settlement you would accept, and what you would refuse.

A worked example

This example is illustrative only and the facts are invented.

Thandi Mokoena is a stock controller in Germiston. She is dismissed on 4 March for allegedly signing off a delivery she never checked. Her outcome letter is dated 6 March, but her last day of work was 4 March, so 4 March goes at the top of her checklist. Thirty calendar days takes her to 3 April, and she writes 29 March next to it as her working target.

Her payslip shows an employer whose registered name is nothing like the trading name on the depot signage, so she copies the registered name and the head office address in Isando, then phones the CCMA and confirms that no bargaining council covers her employer.

The folder takes four evenings. On the second, one day before her account is closed, she forwards the charge sheet, the hearing minutes and two old warnings from her work email. Under Part 6 she records an unfair dismissal, a stated reason of gross negligence, and that she wants compensation rather than reinstatement because she has already found short term work. On 26 March she emails the form to the human resources address on her payslip, prints the sent email, and files at the CCMA office that afternoon with the printout attached.

The mistakes that make one of these useless

Counting from the wrong date. People count from the outcome letter, or from the day the final money arrived. The clock runs from the date of dismissal, and a referral one day late needs condonation just as much as one a year late.

Treating a grievance or an internal appeal as a pause button. It is not one. The 30 days run alongside your appeal. Refer first and appeal in parallel.

Filing without serving. The form has a section for how and when you served the employer. Leave it blank, or attach no proof, and the referral comes back, usually after the deadline has passed.

Writing an essay instead of a summary. Four pages of narrative hands the employer your whole case months early and tells the commissioner nothing they need at conciliation.

Not keeping the stamped copy. Your date stamp or electronic confirmation is the only proof you were inside the deadline. Photograph it and email it to yourself. The same goes for the conciliation certificate later, which is the key to the next step.

How to deliver or file it and prove you did

You never file the checklist. You file LRA Form 7.11, and you serve a copy on the employer before or at the same time.

Serve by a method that leaves a trace: by hand against a signature on your copy, by registered post keeping the slip, by email keeping the sent item, or by fax keeping the report. Then file with the CCMA by a method it accepts, which includes in person at any office, by post, by fax and online. Take three copies, one for the employer, one for the CCMA and one for yourself.

Before you leave the counter, check that your copy carries the CCMA date stamp and write down the case number. If nothing arrives within a couple of weeks, phone 0861 16 16 16 with that number.

If it does not work

If your referral is late, apply for condonation. Set out how late it is, why it is late, why your case has merit, and what each side stands to lose. Be honest about the delay, because an unexplained delay is the usual reason condonation is refused.

If conciliation does not settle the matter, nothing happens automatically. You take the next step yourself and it carries its own deadline. Depending on the reason for the dismissal, that is either arbitration at the CCMA or a referral to the Labour Court. How to refer an unfair dismissal to the CCMA sets out the route and how long a CCMA case takes sets out the timing.

Free help is badly underused: the CCMA assists people running their own matters, and so do trade unions, bargaining councils, Department of Employment and Labour offices and university law clinics. Legal Aid South Africa on 0800 110 110 applies a means test.

LawMatch is not a law firm and this article is not legal advice.

Frequently asked questions

Does the CCMA charge me anything to refer a dispute?

No. Referral, conciliation and arbitration are free. You may still have travel costs, and you may choose to pay somebody for advice, but the CCMA itself charges nothing.

My internal appeal is still running. Should I wait?

No. Run both. The 30 calendar days from the date of dismissal do not stop for an internal appeal or a grievance. If the appeal succeeds, you can withdraw the referral.

What if I cannot get my contract or payslips?

Refer anyway, on time, and keep collecting afterwards. Ask the employer in writing for copies and keep that request. A missing payslip can be fixed later. A missed deadline is much harder to fix.

Do I need a lawyer?

Not to refer, and generally not at conciliation, where legal representation is usually not allowed. What is a fair reason for dismissal and can I be fired without a disciplinary hearing will help you judge your case.

I resigned. Can I still use this?

Only if you say the resignation was forced, which is a constructive dismissal claim, and the burden of proving it sits on you. Read what constructive dismissal is before you refer.