Africa-Press – South-Africa. Absurd” and “perverse” are the words DA leader John Steenhuisen used to describe the draft Employment Equity Amendment Act (EEA) regulations published for comment on Friday, as the DA prepares to challenge the act in the Constitutional Court.
Steenhuisen is, in particular, outraged by the effect the proposed “racial quotas” would have on coloured and Indian South Africans.
Last month, President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the Employment Equity Amendment Bill of 2020 into law. The act empowers the Department of Labour to set new transformation targets for industries, including regional ones, while also sparing many smaller businesses from the need to report annually.
In terms of the act, the Department of Labour must prescribe sectoral employment demographic targets in each province for companies with more than 50 employees.
An “appalled” Steenhuisen said the draft targets “signal a new low for the ANC government, constituting a naked attempt to expand state control over the economy, deepen social divisions and ban certain communities from employment in particular sectors and parts of the country”.
“The quotas seem especially targeted at the groups defined by the regulations as ‘coloured males,’ ‘coloured females,’ ‘Indian males’ and ‘Indian females.’ People from these communities suffered discrimination under the previous regime, and now they are being re-victimised by a democratic government that has learnt all the wrong lessons from the past,” Steenhuisen said in a statement.
“In sectors like agriculture, forestry and fisheries, mining and quarrying, manufacturing, finance, arts, and science, the ‘targets’ set for coloured employees in provinces like Limpopo, Mpumalanga and North West is 0.0%, effectively banning these groups from employment.”
He added that in Gauteng, employment by people classified by the state as coloured is sometimes limited to below 1%. In the case of employees classified by the state as Indian, the targets are often as low as 0.1% across economic sectors.
“Consider the absurdity. A company with 50 employees that has even a single Indian person on the payroll will be in breach of the 0.1% limit, as one out of 50 is equal to 2% of that company’s total employees. Conversely, if that company fires its single Indian employee on the basis of race, it will also be in breach because it will then have 0% Indian employees,” he said.
He said the implications for black employees in the Northern Cape were “just as perverse”.
“In the Northern Cape, for example, employment of ‘black females’ at private firms is limited to below 15.8%. Consequently, a company in Kimberley that happens to employ more skilled black women than the quota allows will also be punished and excluded from government contracts.”
He said the EEA is the “most dangerous piece of racial engineering our country has seen since the dawn of democracy”.
“Its effect will be to stunt social mobility and increase division as workers from certain communities are discouraged from moving to ‘no-go zones’ where they are not welcome. Far from promoting equality, the EEA will deepen division and further fragment our country into groups of insiders and outsiders.”
He predicts a severe economic cost with growing unemployment. He said the DA was already preparing to challenge the racial quotas “all the way to the highest court in this country”.
“It is only by creating a non-racial society where every person enjoys equal opportunities to be judged on the basis of skill and merit, that we will be able to build a better future.”
Steenhuisen also encouraged people to raise their objections to the targets with the department.
Last week, when the proposed targets were still awaited, Jonathan Goldberg, chairperson of Global Business Solutions – a labour law, human resources and industrial relations consultancy, noted that some sectors reported insufficient consultation on the targets. According to a statement, he urged those sectors to voice their objections to Employment and Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi, with the hope of re-evaluating and re-entering consultations where necessary.
Goldberg further proposed that the Nxesi and the department, in rolling out and consulting around these targets, needed to also consider the economic circumstances, staff turnover, and skill sets in each of the sectors in order to set rational and objective sectoral targets.
After Ramaphosa signed the bill into law, trade union Solidarity indicated that it was readying itself for a “huge legal battle” against the bill.
The targets were gazetted on 12 May, giving the public 30 days to comment.
For More News And Analysis About South-Africa Follow Africa-Press
