Daybreak Farms CEO Seruwe's return to work stayed by labour court

Daybreak Farms CEO Boas Seruwe's reinstatement has been delayed by a court judgment.

Last week the labour court made an order staying the enforcement of an arbitration award in November, which ordered the reinstatement of Seruwe to his position.

The court stayed the order of reinstatement pending the outcome of an application by Daybreak Farms to review and set aside the arbitration award.

Daybreak Farms, one of the largest South African poultry producers, employed Seruwe as CEO on a five-year fixed-term contract, starting on June 1 2018, with June 30 2023 the termination date.

On May 11 Seruwe’s employment was terminated on board approval, based on an irretrievable breakdown of the employment relationship.

Aggrieved, Seruwe referred an unfair dismissal dispute to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA).

An arbitration award was issued on November 24 and the arbitrator found Seruwe’s dismissal to be procedurally and substantively unfair.

Daybreak Farms was ordered to reinstate him from December 11 and pay him six months’ back pay.

Daybreak approached the labour court on an urgent basis for an order, among others, to stay the enforcement of the arbitration award pending the outcome of a review application by the poultry producer to set aside the arbitration award.

Seruwe opposed the application.

The labour court granted the order staying the enforcement of the arbitration award on condition that a review application is filed within the six-week period prescribed in terms of the Labour Relations Act.

It said failure to launch the review application would mean the order staying the reinstatement automatically lapses.

Daybreak is wholly owned by the Public Investment Corporation (PIC), which brought in Seruwe to turn the company around.

In June Sunday Times reported that the fight between the new board, which took over in April 2020, and executives started after the executives alerted the PIC in a letter to serious breaches to governance and meddling in procurement. 

Part of this, the publication reported, involved the appointment at the insistence of the board of a law firm in which PIC company secretary Bongani Mathebula, who also brought the names of the board members to the PIC, was an associate. The board also paid more than R5m for a two-month forensic investigation into Daybreak executives, which it has allegedly not used.   

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