Glossary
Industrial Relations Code (IR Code)
One of the four Labour Codes, covering trade unions, standing orders and dispute resolution — 14 chapters, 104 sections — source of the 100→300 thresholds for retrenchment.
The IR Code consolidates the old Trade Unions Act, Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act and Industrial Disputes Act. It sets the rules for union recognition, fixed-term employment, and when an employer needs government permission to retrench, lay off or close.
Its headline change is raising the worker-count trigger for prior-permission and mandatory standing orders from 100 to 300, alongside formalising fixed-term employment as a direct-hire category.
Why it matters now: it is the Code that most directly reshapes workforce-restructuring timelines for mid-sized employers crossing the old 100-worker line.