EE policy must make practical sense

IN A PAMPHLET titled “What employers and workers need to know about employment equity (EE)”, the Department of Labour says: “The purpose of the Act is to remove unfair discrimination and to promote equity in the workplace.”

And, in response to a question about how EE will help workers and managers, it explains: “As a worker, the law will help remove discriminatory barriers of the apartheid past. It should give you access to training, new opportunities and promotion.”

This is an excellent statement of intent – if only it were true.

Our government makes many promises – but more often than not it fails to keep them. We’re sorry– and angry – that many government decisions are not properly thought through, causing unnecessary rifts in communities.

Let’s take a simple example…

In Cape Town, a case in which 10 coloured employees of the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) took legal action against their employers for overlooking their applications for promotion on the grounds of racial discrimination, is yet to be resolved.

The 10 failed in their bid for promotion because the DCS decided to base its employment equity plan on national demographics, where coloured people make up a mere 7.9 percent of South Africa’s population, compared with a percentage for Africans of almost 80 percent.

Had Western Cape demographics been considered, where coloured people make up more than 50 percent of the provincial population, the applicants would probably have secured the positions they had applied for.

It is hard not to describe the actions of the DCS in this matter as anything else but stupid. And we’re astounded at the failure of government to resolve the matter.

The decision to block the promotions of the 10 is a racist action, an action so bad that it cannot even be compared with what used to happen in the apartheid years. During apartheid, we always expected the worst. But in a democratic country such as ours, we have a Bill of Rights guaranteeing equality everywhere, including in the workplace.

It’s high time that commonsense EE policies be applied – and that this matter be speedily resolved.