Thousands of workers retrenched by the Edcon group in 2013 and 2014 have had their hopes of reinstatement dashed by the Constitutional Court. On Friday the court ruled that a failure to follow procedure did not invalidate their dismissals.The law stipulates that an employer undertaking large-scale retrenchments only do so 60 days after inviting employee representatives to a consultation about the impending retrenchments.Edcon, which employed 40000 staff in 1300 retail outlets, started restructuring in April 2013 after its business began to falter. It failed to wait for the prescribed period for consultations before retrenching 3000 employees.Last year 1300 of the dismissed workers approached the Labour Court asking for reinstatement and back pay but they failed.In the past the Labour Court has delivered conflicting judgments on whether or not such dismissals were invalid. When it found in Edcon's favour in March last year, it acted contrary to a judgment handed down in 2010, when four De Beers employees successfully challenged how they were dismissed.The Labour Appeal Court found that Edcon had failed to follow the dismissal procedures and principles set out in the Labour Relations Act. This effectively rendered the firm's dismissal notices invalid.The Constitutional Court on Friday said the Edcon dismissals might be procedurally unfair, but they were not invalid.Justice Ray Zondo, in a majority judgment, said if the procedural requirements of the Act were not complied with by the employer, the result would be that the dismissals were not effected in accordance with a fair procedure as contemplated in the Act."It is, therefore, procedurally unfair - not unlawful, invalid and of no force or effect," he said.He said invalid dismissals and a declaratory order that a dismissal was invalid and of no force and effect fell outside the contemplation of the Act. This judgment means employees dissatisfied with their employers not complying with a fair procedure cannot challenge the validity of their dismissal at common law.In a minority judgment, Justice Edwin Cameron disagreed. He said Edcon had not acted within the law when it dismissed the employees without waiting for the time periods in the Act to expire."The dismissals were a nullity. They had no force and effect," Cameron said in a judgment with which Justice Johann van der Westhuizen concurred...