The essential services committee must give notice in the Government Gazette of any investigation that it is to conduct as to whether the whole or a part of a service is an essential service.
The notice must indicate the service or the part of a service that is to be the subject of the investigation and must invite interested parties, within a period stated in the notice-
to submit written representations; and
Any interested party may inspect any written representations made pursuant to the notice, at the Commission's offices.
The Commission must provide a certified copy of, or extract from, any written representations to any person who has paid the prescribed fee.
The essential services committee must advise parties who wish to make oral representations of the place and time at which they may be made.
Oral representations must be made in public.
After having considered any written and oral representations, the essential services committee must decide whether or not to designate the whole or a part of the service that was the subject of the investigation as an essential service.
If the essential services committee designates the whole or a part of a service as an essential service, the committee must publish a notice to that effect in the Government Gazette. (These notices are reproduced here.)
The essential services committee may vary or cancel the designation of the whole or a part of a service as an essential service, by following the provisions set out in subsections (1) to (8), read with the changes required by the context.
The Parliamentary service and the South African Police Service are deemed to have been designated an essential service in terms of this section.