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In this guide
By Onah Attorneys Inc • Updated July 2026 • Legal information, not a substitute for advice on your specific matter.
South Africa’s labour-broker (TES) workforce lives in engineered precarity — ‘the client just ended the assignment’ as a dismissal that pretends not to be one. Since the LRA amendments and the Constitutional Court’s Assign Services judgment, workers earning under the threshold have a weapon most never use: after three months, the CLIENT becomes the employer. Fully.
The Section 198A deemed-employment rule
Workers earning below the BCEA threshold (updated periodically) placed with a client for more than three months are DEEMED employees of the client — not the broker. The Constitutional Court settled the fight: sole employment by the client, not some dual arrangement. The broker’s paper says one thing; the statute says you work for the client.
What deeming gets you
Everything permanence means: treatment on the whole not less favourable than the client’s own comparable employees (same pay scales, benefits, bonuses — the equal-treatment right), protection from ‘assignment termination’ dismissals (ending the placement IS a dismissal by the client, testable at the CCMA), and inclusion in the client’s headcount for retrenchment consultation.
The evasion playbook — and its counters
Rotating workers off-site at month 2.9; relabelling as ‘independent contractors’; fixed-term contracts rolled endlessly; splitting employment across broker entities. Each has counters: deeming looks at substance (same workplace, same work), s198B limits fixed-term rolling below the threshold (3-month cap without justifiable reason), and the presumption of employment (s200A) puts the burden on the employer where indicators exist.
Enforcing it
CCMA referral: equal-treatment disputes and dismissal disputes (30 days from ‘assignment end’). Demand the client’s comparable-employee terms in the referral. Unions run these at scale, but individuals win them too — the legal architecture is worker-friendly; the barrier is simply that most workers don’t know the rule exists.
If you’re above the threshold
The deeming provisions don’t apply — your protection is the contract, the LRA’s ordinary dismissal law against whoever the true employer is on the facts, and negotiating leverage. The threshold is the entire game: check the current figure against your gross earnings before assuming either way.
Frequently asked questions
I’ve been with the client 2 years via a broker — who employs me?
If you earn below the threshold: the client, by operation of law, with equal-treatment rights. The broker’s payslip doesn’t change the statute.
The client ‘ended my assignment’ — can I fight it?
Yes — for deemed employees that’s a dismissal by the client, referrable to the CCMA within 30 days, with reinstatement and compensation remedies.
Can they pay me less than permanent staff doing the same job?
Not after deeming — treatment must be on the whole not less favourable absent a justifiable distinction. Pay-gap claims are the core equal-treatment fight.
Endless 3-month contracts — legal?
Below the threshold, fixed terms beyond 3 months need a justifiable reason or the contract is deemed indefinite (s198B). Rolling contracts to dodge permanence is precisely what the section kills.
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