Labour advisory for Employers.
Clear, practical labour-law advice for South African employers, from hiring and everyday workplace management to disciplinary action, dismissals and CCMA disputes. Ask a question and get a straight answer, with a legal advisor and an attorney panel behind you when a matter needs one.
Not sure where to start? Ask Naledi, our online legal advisor, a labour law question and get an answer in seconds. Our advisors and attorney panel are behind her when a matter needs more.
No setup fee. One month's notice to cancel.
Tap a topic to see a sample.
When you have an employee problem
Every employer runs into one of these sooner or later. Find the one closest to what you're dealing with, or ask Naledi directly and get a straight answer in minutes.
Before you act on a poor performer, a disciplinary case, a resignation or a restructure, know what the law actually allows, and what happens if you get it wrong.
Learn more →If a matter is genuinely headed to the CCMA or Labour Court, you are not on your own: escalation to a legal advisor, then to our attorney panel, without starting the story over.
Learn more →Incapacity is not misconduct, and the law treats the two differently. Know which one you are actually dealing with, and what a fair process looks like for each.
Learn more →Warnings, hearings and process that hold up under the LRA, not just ones that feel fair. Process is usually where a case is won or lost.
Learn more →Contracts, offer letters and probation terms that protect the business from day one, not just paperwork to get someone started.
Learn more →Retrenchment has its own rules under the LRA. Get the consultation and selection process right, and a necessary business decision does not turn into a dispute.
Learn more →Every one of these is a normal Tuesday for an employer. None of them need to become a crisis.
Learn more
The Labour Relations Act and the Basic Conditions of Employment Act do not care whether you knew the rules going in. Get a routine workplace decision wrong, and it can turn into a CCMA referral, a reinstatement order, or months of management time you do not have.
A dismissal has to be both substantively fair (a genuine, fair reason) and procedurally fair (a fair process followed to reach it). The law only recognises three fair reasons: misconduct, incapacity (poor performance or ill health), or the employer's own operational requirements. Get either the reason or the process wrong, and an employee can refer the dispute to the CCMA, generally within 30 days of the dismissal, and from there, if it is not resolved, on to the Labour Court.
The BCEA sets the floor for ordinary employment: working hours and overtime, annual, sick, family responsibility and parental leave, notice periods, deductions from pay, and the written particulars of employment every employee is entitled to. Contracts, policies and everyday decisions that fall short of it are non-compliant whether or not anyone has ever complained about it, and it becomes a real problem the moment someone does.
A CCMA referral is not just a legal problem. It means conciliation and, if that does not resolve it, arbitration: time spent in a room instead of at your desk, management attention pulled off the business for weeks at a time, and, if the employer loses, a possible order to reinstate the employee, pay back pay, or pay compensation, on top of everything already spent managing the process. Most of that is avoidable. Almost all of it comes down to a decision that was made without checking, first, whether it was the right one, and the right way to make it.
How it works
Every query starts with Naledi, our online legal advisor. Most end there. What does not goes to a legal advisor, and what needs an attorney goes to the panel.
Routine, settled questions get an immediate answer from Naledi, ClearLine's online legal advisor, trained and expert in South African labour law, available any time with no waiting for a callback.
Anything outside Naledi's defined scope is routed straight to a senior legal advisor on our team, who responds personally rather than having it guessed at.
If a matter is, in substance, Labour Court litigation or otherwise requires an attorney, it is referred to our attorney panel under a separate mandate you enter directly with that firm.
Panel and ethics
We are not a law firm. For anything that is genuinely litigation-ready, we work with a panel of attorneys who specialise in labour law.
Matters that are, in substance, ready for the Labour Court are referred to attorneys focused on labour law and Labour Court practice. You deal with that firm directly, under its own mandate and fee agreement; we do not charge for legal representation and are not a party to that mandate.
The biggest cost of escalating a matter is usually re-explaining it. With membership, your history already sits in your portal, so once you authorise a referral the attorney gets straight to the substance instead of reconstructing the file. Nothing is shared before you say so; the authorisation is yours to give, matter by matter.
Panel attorneys charge members at discounted rates agreed with ClearLine. To join the panel, a firm agrees to charge in line with our panel fee guideline, so you know what to expect before a matter is referred. Your discount grows with your membership: 10% after 6 months of continuous membership, 20% after 12 months, and up to 30% after 24 months. We take no share of any attorney's fees.
The member portal only opens for people signed in with a real account tied to their own company, and each company's records are enforced at the database level, not just hidden in the interface. Data in transit and at rest is encrypted by our hosting providers, and nothing about a member's file moves to a panel attorney without that member's own authorisation, matter by matter.
Membership
Labour-law support from R79 a month, no setup fee, one month's notice to cancel. The higher the package, the more you get: more documents each week, a bigger monthly allowance of contracts and policies, more CCMA files, and a bigger discount on everything else.
Your first line of defence for everyday employment and labour-law questions.
Enhanced digital labour assistance with a weekly allowance of employer templates for everyday employee matters.
More consultant access, document support and practical labour assistance for employers dealing with regular employee issues.
Consultant escalation: legal advisor review of one defined labour issue, based on the information supplied by the member.
Ongoing labour assistance for businesses that regularly deal with employee and workplace issues.
Priority labour support for employers who want additional legal advisor assistance and access to attorney escalation when required.
Our most complete package, for employers with a steady flow of employee matters: unlimited CCMA files, and unlimited documents once you have been with us for six months.
3 month minimum term. If a Premier membership ends within its first 3 months, access ends with it and a R550 reactivation fee applies when you rejoin.
Included documents are for your own business's day-to-day needs. Every included document counts towards your weekly allowance (Premier: monthly), including contracts, policies, disciplinary documents and documents from guided matters; the employee onboarding document is free and never counts. Weekly allowances run from Monday to Sunday and monthly allowances from the 1st, both in South African time. Once an allowance is used up, any further document is available once off at your member discount. Included CCMA files are counted over the life of your membership. The hearing chairperson is optional and billed per hour (two hour minimum, paid when booking). Attorney escalation is handled by our attorney panel under a separate mandate you enter directly with that firm, as described under "Panel and ethics" above.
Pick any two packages and see exactly what changes between them.
Every package includes Digital Labour Assistance. Moving up gives you more of everything. On a phone, swipe the table sideways to see every package.
| What you get | Essential R79/month | Assist R124/month | Professional R249/month | Business R449/month | Executive R799/month | Premier R1249/month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Digital Labour Assistance | Yes | Enhanced | Enhanced | Enhanced | Enhanced | Enhanced |
| Included documents | Onboarding document only | Up to 2 per week | Up to 4 per week | Up to 6 per week | Up to 8 per week | 12 per month, unlimited after 6 paid months |
| Employment contracts | Not included | Not included | 1 per month | 2 per month | 10 per month | Within your monthly allowance |
| Policies | Not included | Not included | 1 per month | 2 per month | 6 per month | Within your monthly allowance |
| Disciplinary case documents | Not included | 1 per month | 2 per month | 4 per month | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Discount on anything not included | None | None | 10% off | 25% off | 30% off | 35% off |
| Labour consultant escalations | Not included | Not included | 1 per month | 2 per month | 4 per month | 6 per month |
| Document reviews | Not included | Not included | 1 per month | 2 per month | Priority, no limit | Priority, no limit |
| CCMA Matters files included | Not included | Not included | 1 employee | 2 employees | 5 employees | Unlimited |
| Each additional CCMA file | R999 | R999 | R899 | R749 | R699 | Not needed |
| CCMA Handbook for Employers | R749 | R749 | R674 | Included | Included | Included |
| Discipline Handbook for Employers | R749 | R749 | R674 | R562 | Included | Included |
| Hearing chairperson (optional) | R2,000 an hour | R2,000 an hour | R1,800 an hour | R1,500 an hour | R1,400 an hour | R1,300 an hour |
| Priority handling | Not included | Not included | Not included | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Attorney escalation | Not included | Not included | Not included | Discounted | Preferred rates | Preferred rates |
| Minimum term | None | None | None | None | None | 3 months |
| Get Started | Choose Assist | Choose Professional | Choose Business | Choose Executive | Choose Premier |
Member portal
Log warnings and other employment documents against an employee, set how long a warning stays valid, and get a running countdown so nothing lapses without you noticing. Per the panel section above, with your authorisation it is also the file an attorney sees the moment a matter is referred.
Try it now
This is Naledi, our online legal advisor described in step 1 above. Ask her a labour law question the way a member would.
FAQ
No. ClearLine is a labour advisory service, not a law firm. Matters that require litigation are referred to the attorney panel above, under a separate mandate you enter into with that firm.
No. Naledi is ClearLine's online legal advisor: trained and an expert in South African labour law, built so that using her feels like talking to someone rather than filling in a form. She is not a person, so using her is not the same as speaking to an attorney, and the true legal advice on your matter always comes directly from our legal advisors. She will say so plainly if you ask, or before handing you off to a senior legal advisor or the panel. We would rather be upfront about that than have it feel like a trick.
No. Naledi's answers are general guidance from an online legal advisor trained on South African labour law, offered to help you think a question through.
It is escalated to a senior legal advisor directly, and if litigation is genuinely needed, referred to our attorney panel under a mandate you enter into with that firm directly.