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THE LABOUR COURT OF SOUTH AFRICA
AT CAPE TOWN
Not reportable/Of Interest,to other Judges
Case no: C 69/2024
In the matter between:
SOLIDARITY obo VAN RENSBURG, C K Plaintiff
and
XONE CONTROL ROOM.MANAGEMENT Defendant
(PTY) LTD
Heard: 14 — 15 October 2024
Delivered:, 22 July 2025
Summary: (Claim of automatically unfair dismissal — Failure to prove that
termination was not in accordance with an agreed retirement age —
claim dismissed)
JUDGMENT
LAGRANGE, J
2
Introduction
[1] This is a claim for an automatically unfair dismissal based on age in terms
of s 187(1)(f) of the Labour Relations Act, 66 of 1995 (‘the LRA’), brought
by the plaintiff, Mr C K Van Rensburg (‘Van Rensburg’) against his former
employer (‘Xone’), the defendant’. Xone defends the claim on the basis that
Van Rensburg retired on an agreed retirement age and accordinglywas fair
in terms of s 187(2)(b) of the LRA. At the time of his termination,of service
on 30 September 2023, Xone as the Security,Contract Manager of the
Boschendal Wine Estate employed Van Rensburg:
[2] Prior to the commencement of proceedings Xone.belatedly raised a special
plea objecting to Van Rensburg’s alternative claim of unfair dismissal. It had
also questioned whether Van Rensburg was a paid-up member of
Solidarity, the union whichyrepresented him. Van Rensburg abandoned his
alternative claimmand, Xone abandoned its objection to Solidarity
representing Van Rensburg. In consequence, there were no preliminary
issues for the court to determine.
[3] Van. Rensburg gave evidence on his own behalf and Xone called its
managing director, Mr R Groenewald (‘Groenewald’), and HR director Ms K
Naidoo (‘Naidoo’) as witnesses.
[4] The crux of the dispute between the parties is whether the agreed
retirement age which applied to Van Rensburg was set out in a revision of
Xone’s retirement policy on 15 March 2023 or was contained in a letter of
1 The designation of parties has been altered to align with terminology used in Rule 11 of the
recently amended Labour Court Rules.
3
30 August 2022 extending his retirement date from 30 September 2022 to
30 September 2023.
[5] Apart from the chronology of events, a great deal of the evidence
concerned each party’s understanding of which documents took
precedence over the other, which is a matter of legal interpretation.
Outline of events and issues
[6] It is necessary to set out a brief chronology of events.
[7] Since 2013, Van Rensburg had been employed by Xone, with interruptions,
for extended periods of time. Prior to his lastespell of employment, he was
briefly engaged as an acting site manager on a fixed term contract
commencing on 4 November and ending on 18 November 2020.
[8] His most recent spell of employment commenced on 19 February 2021,
when he was engaged on.a permanent basis as a contract manager. His
written employment contract made no express mention of a retirement age.
The relevant portio s of clause 14 of his employment contract read:
“14 POBIGIES AND PROCEDURES
14.1 Alhgeneral conditions of service of the Company, as
amended from time to time, will be applicable to the Employee to
the extent that they not overwritten by any provision of this
Agreement.
14.2...
14.3 The employee agrees he shall conform to all policies, rules,
regulations and procedures in operation of the Company from time
to time.Such policies, rules, regulations and procedures shall
form part of the agreement, even if not attached hereto.