Weekly Mail & Guardian Reporters
Coloureds are being discriminated against in the private sector’s affirmative action (AA) scramble for African faces, particularly in lower level jobs, say leading personnel agencies.
Although AA theoretically benefits all disadvantaged people, the majority of companies want Africans, and agencies often use factors like language, place of residence, education, and surnames as indicators of whether an applicant is “black enough” for a position, they say.
Alec Rubenstein, head of the AA committee of the Association of Personnel Service Organisations (Apso), says Apso policy does not allow personnel agencies to handle assignments which specify a certain race group unless the company seeking staff can justify their discriminative AA policy, for example, a company which has only coloured or Asian workers in a particular job category and wants to employ more Africans, as is often the case in the Western Cape.
But agencies say companies are pressurising them to send African applicants — coloureds do get jobs, but only if African applicants do not have the required skills, or the potential to learn them.
One prominent human resource consultant, who has knowledge of over 2 000 companies, says 90 percent of companies looking for AA appointments want Africans only.
Colin Leeson, MD of Right Link Appointments, agrees Africans have priority in 90 percent of AA appointments.
“Companies are working on statistics. They have to get African people into senior management because they have always been in junior management or lower positions; coloureds previously had more opportunities to get management jobs,” he explains.
Executive Task Force MD John Clements believes the majority of companies ask for Africans because they are trying to be politically correct, and to them that means hiring Africans.
MD of Emmanuels Business Unit, Barbara Silverman, confirms the trend, adding that it is because AA dictates that personnel have to reflect the population’s demographics. “This means that 80 percent of the employees must be African.”
PAC MP Patricia de Lille believes the discrimination against coloureds is more the exception than the rule, but says it has led to a spate of racist job advertisements.
In the Western Cape, many companies advertise for Xhosa speaking applicants — immediately excluding many people. “A lot of coloureds don’t speak the language simply because they weren’t taught it under the apartheid system,” she says.
All agree that the lack of a universal definition of AA contributes to the problem, as each company implements its own version of the policy. They condemn the blind favouring of Africans, and confess it can sometimes call for awkward judgments of a person’s colour.
Says Clements: “I don’t really know how we measure. We do it so subtly, we don’t think about it. Sometimes the surname gives you a clue, but not in all cases. We mostly leave it to the client to decide whether an applicant is African or coloured.”
So does Right Link Appointments. “The applicants define themselves. If not, we look at schooling, surnames and varsities they attended, or the area from which they come,” says Leeson, adding that he can “tell”, mostly, when they come in for a job interview.
Rubenstein says agencies should take the applicant’s decision on it. “We honestly tell the applicant of the company’s policy and send them out for the job interview if they say they are African.”
The Government has no such policy. All people of colour are being considered for the 11 000 positions advertised by the Department of Public Adminstration and Service. “If we make a distinction, for instance on surnames, the discrimination would be back but in another form,” says PR Manager Basetsana Thokoane.
According to business transformation consultant Christo Nel of Interdependence and Transformation in South Africa (ITISA), which deals with leading companies like South African Breweries and Lever Brothers, the perception of discrimination against coloureds will persist until the mechanics of appointments are opened. “All people in a company have to be involved in determining AA strategies,” he says.