Employment law
The scale of sanctions: building it, calibrating it, applying it
In Sikasso, the Sikasso Coton Services ginning plant runs three shifts through the season. A shift supervisor turns up two hours late, for the third time that month. The HR manager opens the internal rules: the scale of sanctions fits on one line, “warning, suspension, dismissal”. Nothing on the steps, nothing on how to move between them. He will have to decide alone, and he will decide badly.
Sikasso Coton Services and the people named here are fictional. They serve only as an example throughout this article.
1. Where the scale comes from, and why the question matters
The Malian Labour Code sets no scale of sanctions. It entrusts that to the internal rules, whose content is devoted exclusively to the technical organisation of work, discipline, health and safety, and the arrangements for paying wages (Labour Code, article L.64).
The six-step scale found everywhere in Mali therefore does not come from the law. It comes from the internal rules and collective agreements that have taken it up over time. That origin is no theoretical detail: it decides what actually binds you.
| If the scale appears… | Then… |
|---|---|
| In the applicable collective agreement | It binds the company, and the internal rules cannot make it less favourable to the worker |
| In internal rules that are stamped and posted | It binds the company, which cannot depart from it case by case |
| Nowhere | The employer sanctions with no written reference: the decision is hard to defend, and the court has no internal rule to review |
The scale is not in the law. It is in your internal rules, and it binds you as much as it binds your teams.
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2. The six-step scale, as it is actually practised
Here is the most widespread gradation, with what each step really does to the contract of employment.
| Step | Sanction | Effect on the contract |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Verbal warning, recorded in writing on file | No effect, but disciplinary power is exhausted over the facts covered |
| 2 | Written warning | No effect on the contract; forms the prior record grounding any escalation |
| 3 | Suspension from duty of 1 to 3 days | Suspends the contract: no work, no pay, for the period set |
| 4 | Suspension from duty of 4 to 8 days | Same effect; the eighth day is the absolute statutory cap |
| 5 | Dismissal with notice | Ends the contract; notice, severance pay and accrued rights remain due |
| 6 | Dismissal for gross misconduct | Ends the contract with no notice and no severance pay, subject to the court’s assessment |
The correction to make to the scales in circulation
Many scales in circulation distinguish, at the last two steps, “dismissal for serious misconduct” and “dismissal for gross misconduct”. That distinction comes from French law. The Malian Labour Code knows only gross misconduct, and leaves its assessment to the competent court. The fifth step is therefore not a dismissal for serious misconduct: it is an ordinary dismissal, grounded on a legitimate reason relating to the worker, with notice and severance (Labour Code, articles L.41 and L.53).
The difference is financial before it is theoretical: it bears on notice and on severance pay. On the characterisation itself, see Disciplinary sanctions: characterising the fault.
3. What the eighth day means
Suspension from duty appears in the list of cases where the contract of employment is suspended, and the Code sets it a numerical limit: it may not exceed eight days (Labour Code, article L.34).
Beyond that, the measure changes nature. It is no longer a disciplinary suspension but a suspension with no legal basis: the contract is not validly suspended, so the wage remains due for the excess days.
Example. The Sikasso Coton Services shift supervisor earns XOF 180,000 a month. The calculation uses a 30-day month, unless an agreement provides otherwise.
- Daily wage: 180,000 ÷ 30 = XOF 6,000.
- A lawful 4-day suspension: 4 × 6,000 = XOF 24,000 not due.
- A 12-day suspension: the first 8 days are lawful, the next 4 are not. The company owes XOF 24,000 for those four days.
- And the sanction becomes challengeable as a whole, which exposes the company far beyond those XOF 24,000.
Eight days is a ceiling, not a target. Beyond it, the wage becomes due again.
4. The request for explanation: what it really protects
The Malian Labour Code does not require a written request for explanation before a sanction. Many collective agreements and internal rules do provide for one, with a reply period of at least forty-eight hours. Two consequences follow, and they point the same way.
If your internal rules or your collective agreement provide for it, it becomes compulsory for you. Skipping it means breaching your own rule: the company puts itself in the wrong on the one ground it fully controlled.
If no text provides for it, it remains the company’s best protection. It dates the facts, fixes each side’s version in writing, and proves the worker was given the chance to explain himself. Before the labour court it is often the single document that separates a solid file from one reconstructed after the event.
Three points of method
- A worker who can neither read nor write replies verbally, in the presence of a staff representative, and his reply is written down and read back before a witness.
- Silence from the worker is not an admission. It only establishes that the opportunity to explain was offered.
- The period runs from delivery, and delivery must be provable: a signed receipt, or handover in the presence of a third party.
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5. Writing the notification
A notification of sanction runs to a few lines, but each one counts. The principle is simple: you write facts, never a judgement about the person.
| What the notification contains | What it never contains |
|---|---|
| The alleged facts and their precise date | An assessment of character or personality |
| The rule in the internal rules that covers them | A vague, undated reproach |
| The worker’s reply, or a record of his silence | Mention of facts already sanctioned |
| The sanction imposed and its effective date | A threat to the job with no decision taken |
Where the sanction is a dismissal, two further formalities apply and cannot be made good afterwards: the district labour inspector must have been informed by registered letter, and the notice letter must state the ground for the termination (Labour Code, articles L.40, L.41 and L.43). These steps are set out in detail in Disciplinary power.
6. Three calibration errors that keep coming back
Placing a breach of integrity at the third step
Several scales in circulation put soliciting a bribe among the breaches sanctioned by a one-to-three-day suspension, on the same level as a one-off absence from post. That is an internal inconsistency: a breach of integrity engages the company’s responsibility towards its clients and the administration. It belongs at the top of the scale, not in the middle.
Believing you must climb the steps one by one
The scale shows a gradation; it does not require passing through every step. What matters is the proportion between the facts and the sanction. A first breach of exceptional seriousness may justify termination straight away; a third late arrival does not justify dismissal.
Believing the worker need not be warned
One sometimes reads that “the employer is under no obligation to alert the employee to the disciplinary consequences” and that “the absence of a warning does not undermine the justification for dismissal”. In Mali that statement is wrong on at least two counts. The internal rules must be posted in the hiring premises and at the workplaces to be enforceable (Labour Code, article L.67), and the notice letter must state the ground for termination. The rule must be knowable before it is applied.
7. Keeping the record: the sanctions log
No text requires a sanctions log as such. But two compulsory registers already carry the trace, and an organised company builds on them.
The payments register includes an account of absences broken down by cause: a disciplinary suspension necessarily appears there. The employer’s register includes a third section reserved for the stamps, formal notices and observations entered by the labour inspector. Both are kept for five years.
In practice, a simple table per worker (date of the facts, rule invoked, request for explanation, reply, sanction, effective date) is enough to answer an inspection question in ten minutes, and to show the court that the company applies the same rule to everyone.
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A closer look: how long does a sanction weigh?
The Malian Labour Code provides no period after which sanctions are wiped. The scales in circulation often use six months: a prior record less than six months old justifies moving up a step, beyond that it no longer counts.
That period is not statutory. It comes from the internal rules or the collective agreement. Two practical consequences: if it is written there, it binds the company, which cannot invoke a two-year-old warning to escalate a sanction; if it is not, the age of the prior record remains a factor the court weighs freely, and an old reproach carries little weight.
The simplest course is to write it down. On drafting that part of the internal rules, see Internal rules.
Key takeaways in 6 points
- Write the scale of sanctions step by step in the internal rules, after reading the collective agreement.
- Remember there is no “dismissal for serious misconduct” in Mali: the final step is gross misconduct, assessed by the court.
- Cap suspension from duty at eight days: beyond that, wages for the excess days remain due.
- Hand over a written request for explanation and allow at least forty-eight hours before deciding.
- Notify dated facts and the rule invoked, never an assessment of the person.
- Keep a sanctions record and check that comparable facts receive comparable sanctions.