A backlash against employment equity and, to a lesser extent, black economic empowerment is under way. In some cases it is overt, in others subtle.
Take the overt: last year a staggering 70% of eligible companies did not even bother to fill in employment equity reports, says the Department of Labour. The latest available analysis from the department also shows that seven in 10 senior managers are white. Only 6% of the JSE Securities Exchange is black-owned, 10 years after the end of apartheid.
And then there is the subtle: opinion-makers and the chattering classes are turning equity and empowerment into the next threat to the country’s economy and future.
The author Denis Beckett’s latest book Redeeming Features has received rave reviews partly because it issues an ”early warning” against ”the villain in our midst … Empowerment or Transformation or Representivity”.
And then there are the election posters festooning lamp-posts: ”You deserve your fair share.” The sub-text is this: you’re not getting your fair share because the blacks are getting it all. Parties contesting the minority vote all feature variations of the same message: that employment equity must end, even before it’s properly started, if the labour department’s figures are anything to go by.
There are laudable exceptions, like those of South African Breweries, Cell-C and MTN, but the figures suggest at best a lack of support for this next step to freedom; at worst they suggest an active boycott. Employment equity was easy to support when it was on the drawing boards, but in practice it is a challenging process with many warts.
To reach our end of transition — the time when we stop being a post-apartheid society and become a vibrant developing country — employment equity and black economic empowerment is crucial to putting an array of young, black talent in positions of power in society, the economy and politics. As long as the overwhelming majority of the wealth of the country is concentrated in the hands of a minority, the country will be socially and politically unstable. This reveals the argument for ”more time” to handle the transition properly or better, for what it is — ”more time” to keep the present economic status-quo in place.
Take Beckett. He eschews equity and empowerment for an ill-defined ”synthesis” where race does not count, merit is all and we all live happily ever after. It’s an elegant supposition, but also one that is little more than pie-in-the-sky.
David Bullard, writing in The Media magazine, says: ”I suspect the current preference for black editors over white probably has less to do with delivering a noticeably superior product to the consumer and more to do with newspaper publishers wishing to suck up to the politicians. So much for the notion of an independent press.”
This is silly not racist, but it does speak of a mindset in need of a coup d’état.
And some young black leaders have already shown that they are willing to challenge those who sit smugly behind their ramparts of perceived power.
Editor of ThisDay Justice Malala, in a devastating, but hilarious, response to criticisms by media analyst Chris Moerdyk, wrote: ”The point about this ill-informed twaddle is that Moerdyk, despite decades of running around styling himself a media and marketing guru, cannot read with comprehension or even analyse the effectiveness of an ad campaign. Too many in the media and marketing world have kept quiet about his inane abuse and ill-informed ‘analysis’ for fear of ‘alienating an important media player’. Well, enough now. His unresearched, unsubstantiated rubbish must stop.”
Perhaps more tellingly, Malala is able to critique Moerdyk’s longing for the writing of long-gone investigative reporters, by pointing out: ”Moerdyk’s examples are as old as the last time he seems to have read a newspaper (clearly the Rand Daily Mail). Since then, Mr Moerdyk, we have had some cracking good investigative reporters in this country: Mzilikazi waAfrika, Stefaans Brümmer et al. I suggest you start using examples such as these lest we start thinking that you are still stuck in the late 1970s.”
But, beyond storming the ramparts, young black leaders must also take a hard, long look at themselves and how they have made use of the opportunities the transition in South Africa has presented to them.
An entire recruitment industry has been born to poach ”employment equity” (EE) or ”affirmative action” (AA) appointments from one company to another. To be so tagged is insulting; to be only a cash cow for executive search consultants gives employment equity a bad name — and has little to do with rebuilding South Africa.
After one equity appointment, young black men and all women should then refuse other equity-based appointments and even promotions. This will show that one leg up is all we need — thereafter we compete equally because we are as good as. A meritocracy; a non-racial society is after all the desirable outcome of policies chosen and it should come sooner rather than later.
Such a decision must by necessity be a personal one and it is a tough one — for you need to ask prospective employers and business partners to see beyond your race and your gender once you have arrived in the middle-class. The pride and dignity quotient would be immeasurable; that you are black or female (or black and female) is only the cherry on top. And besides, can someone driving a BMW X5, Golf GTI or a Jaguar honestly claim still to be disadvantaged?
History cannot be rewritten between one job and another; decades of disadvantage are not quickly breached. But black talent is fuelling the backlash by driving up the price through job-hopping. And job-hopping is in turn ensuring that the pool stays small. Taking a conscious decision to be ”affirmed” only once will bring new talent (and eventually critical mass) into the system and force business to train and undertake equity programmes more meaningful than the poaching frenzy that is currently in place.
Fronting, where black companies are empty shells used by established white-owned businesses to get government and other contacts, is an equally nefarious practice that black analysts and leaders must speak out about. And the architecture of every big-ticket black economic empowerment deal needs to be inspected carefully and with rigour to ensure that it is genuine and not just rah-rah.
It’s time to move beyond the sterile debate and name-calling that employment equity has become. It is time to move beyond easy celebrations and quick-fix appointments. The transfer of wealth is essential and imperative — the debate now is to determine how it will be exercised en masse and in substantial ways; not about whether we should do it or not.