Civil Rights Group Cape Forum and union Solidarity have urged Minister of Employment and Labour, Thulas Nxesi, to extend public consultations on the new Employment Equity Act Amendment Bill of 2020 or scrap it altogether.
The groups plan to legally challenge the amendments, despite the Presidency saying that the new law aims to promote diversity and equality in the workplace and advance transformation.
The Bill amends the Employment Equity Act of 1998 and law gives Employment and Labour Minister Nxesi the power to set employment equity targets for economic sectors, and regions where transformation is lagging.
According to the Bill, the numerical targets are to ensure equal representation of suitably qualified people from historically disadvantaged groups based on race, province, gender, and disability at all occupational levels in the workplace.
In addition, employers with more than 50 employees will be required to submit employment equity plans, which indicate how they will achieve these targets and will also be required to submit annual reports to the labour department.
Although the groups acknowledged that there is a need for redress, it says placing targets will not address the systematic imbalances.
They argue that input-based affirmative action, where employers are encouraged to ensure that they train and develop people instead of setting targets, is a far better solution.
Head of the Solidarity Research Institute, Connie Mulder explains that the new law has set targets across all four levels that suggest that:
- Coloured people in the workplace should be decreased from 11.2 percent to 8.7 percent,
- Indian employees from 7 percent to 2.5 percent and
- White workers should be reduced from 24 percent to 8 percent.
Mulder stresses that in order to grow into the new targets South Africa would need to create about 12.6 million jobs minimum in the next five years.
He continues, “This means we roughly need to double the amount of people who are working.”
If we say how many positions need to be created, so this is the top 40 and we're assuming that the labour market will retain the structure then South Africa would need to create I think it's about 12.6 million jobs minimum in the next five years to grow into the targets as published in The Gazette.
Meanwhile, the labour department noted that they will follow the legislative framework with regards to enforcing the new amendments.
They expressed, “We respect any citizen’s constitutional right to challenge any matter in court. We have called for inputs and comments of the Employment Equity Act.”
The department says that all public comments are currently being considered and should parties decide to take legal action, it will be handled on the correct platform.
The groups are expected to march to parliament to hand over a petition and take legal action to attempt to get the signed act reversed.
