Making Moonlighting Work

Starting a side hustle could help you bring more money in or make inroads towards a career change. But if you’re not aware of the legal ramifications, it could see you losing your main job

- Norma Young

At the start of 2013, Peter Motloung was acting principal, as well as a maths and science teacher at Falesizwe Secondary School in Frankfort. By November, he had been dismissed by the school and beginning a legal battle that would continue until 2016. Motloung was fired for earning extra cash as a municipal councillor at the Mafube Local Municipality, without his employer, the Department of Education’s approval.

After a lengthy legal process, Motloung was reinstated without back-pay in December 2014. Judge Hilary Rabkin-Naicker explained the mitigating circumstances for overruling the dismissal. “The fact that the department did not bother to respond to Motloung’s request for permission to serve as a councillor after the May 2011 elections and then sought to charge him years later is further support for the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration’s view that the conduct of his employer was unfair.” Motloung’s case was helped by the fact that he had attempted to get permission, and that other teachers, both at his school and others, were also moonlighting as councillors. None of them had been dismissed. Consequently, the Department of Education was deemed to be inconsistent and unfair in their ‘selective disciplining’ of Motloung.

But what about when you’re not a civil servant but just an ordinary employee, and want a second job that brings in more money, or that allows you to explore a passion? Is moonlighting a legal minefield then too?

STAY IN THE LIGHT

Industrial psychologist and career coach, Phiona Martin, says it’s important to check the rules and expectations at your specific company.