Commissioner Thuli Madonsela, speaking for the Commission for Employment Equity, has hinted that forthcoming employment equity reports from companies could challenge previous statistics that painted a positive picture of workplace transformation.
Madonsela said the last report analysed in the 2001 reporting cycle covered employers who employed 150 or more employees.
In terms of this report in which 1 782 companies were included, 77% of employees were black and 35% of employees were women.
”The top management was 75% white and 25% black — but this breakdown is not a true reflection, because it just reflects big companies with more than 150 employees,” said Madonsela.
This ”rosy” picture could change if all, especially the smaller companies, submitted their reports.
She said only 12% of top management were women, who were ”grossly” under-represented. In terms of the promotions profile, 77% of those promoted were black, but again this should be read in context, where for example ”a cleaner was promoted to chief cleaner or supervisor”.
The lack of transformation in the employment figures was even more skewed against the disabled, who represented ”10% of the population but had less than 1% employed”.
Madonsela said that if ”people want us to get rid of affirmative action then we must accelerate the rate of change in the workplace to help get rid of the systematic discrimination of the past”.
She said a comparative analysis of the 2000 and 2001 reports indicated that positive movement was negligible in the strata of top management, senior management, professionally qualified and middle management as well as the skilled technical and academically qualified personnel.
”The movement is negligible and if we continue to move at a snail’s pace we will have affirmative action around for the next 100 years,” she said.
The Commission for Employment Equity advises the labour minister of the implementation of the Employment Equity Act and helps the ministry to develop codes of good practise for companies, among others.
However, Black Management Forum (BMF) managing director Nolitha Fakude called for the commission in its present form to be disbanded and reconstituted because an as advisory body it ”could not deliver on what South Africans expected to be done”.
Fakude said there was a lot of despair amongst the BMF around the implementation and monitoring of the Employment Equity Act.
”In our books people who are breaking the law are unfortunately getting away with it… with many employers simply not giving a damn,” she said.
Fakude said there was also a perception that the private sector was not playing its role and that the government was accommodating it. ”Employment equity is one of the cornerstones of black economic empowerment… and we must be careful that this is not sabotaged or undermined,” she said.
According to the chair of the portfolio committee Salie Manie, the act was intended to promote equal opportunity, to prevent unfair discrimination and to ensure equitable representation of designated groups at all levels of the workplace.
Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana warned companies on Tuesday to submit their equity reports before October 1 2003, or face fines of up to R900 000.
”The Minister of Labour, Membathisi Mdladlana will not be extending deadlines… the period of grace is over and there is enough in place to generate quality reports about what is happening in the workplace,” said commissioner Thuli Madonsela, briefing the portfolio committee on labour at the start of two days of public hearings into employment equity in the South African job market.
The labour ministry has already granted extensions to businesses when they did not respond on time in 2001 and 2002. – Sapa