An employer cannot force an employee into early retirement. If this happens, it’s an unfair dismissal. In this case, it’s important that you take steps immediately. In the case of an unfair dismissal dispute, you have 30 days from the date on which the dispute arose to open a case. The law that applies here is section 187 (1)(f) of the Labour Relations Act (LRA), which says that the dismissal of an employee based on his or her age is automatically unfair.
The dismissal will only be fair if the employee has reached the normal or agreed on retirement age for people employed in that position. It’s also important to look at what your employment contract states – for example, if your contract says that the normal retirement age is 60, even if you are still working at the company and you are older than 60 years of age, it is not an unfair dismissal.
The law does not prescribe any minimum for how much the employer can pay out at early retirement.
It’s also possible that the employer is trying to get around the LRA, which would involve retrenchment (for operational reasons) and therefore a bigger severance payout than if the employee accepts the offer and chooses to resign early. Early retirement is exclusively the decision of the employee, and cannot be forced by the employer. So what your employer is basically saying is that they want you, the employee, to terminate your employment contract with them. You do not have to accept early retirement.
Tips:
- If your employer doesn't have a contractual retirement age, they cannot force you to retire and even if they do, they can only force you to retire when you reach the contractual age.
- You must report an unfair dismissal to the CCMA with 30 days of the dismissal happening.
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* This is only basic advice and cannot be relied on solely. The information is correct at the time of being sent to publishing.