South Africa’s Commission for Employment Equity — which monitors transformation in the South African workplace — has come out with all guns firing against a Solidarity trade union employment-equity plan that proposes a code of good practice for affirmative action.
The commission said in a statement on Wednesday that the mainly white Solidarity trade union has “put together what they call a code of good practice” and “rolled it out” — and only then come to consult the commission.
Jimmy Manyi, commission chairperson, said the commission takes “strong” exception to that.
“We feel the process is not only flawed, but it also undermines our intelligence as the commission,” said the chair. The commission held a meeting with the trade union earlier on Wednesday in Pretoria.
“The code as presented by Solidarity aims to create a framework for employers, within which they can implement an affirmative action model that will promote the commitment of the non-designated group [whites],” said the chairperson.
Manyi said the document, which was being circulated for implementation by Solidarity to employers, “flies in the face of the actual good intentions of the [employment equity] legislation — which is to equate the demographics of the workplace and address the atrocities committed by the defunct discriminatory regime [the former apartheid government]”.
He took offence at “the idea of an unrepresentative section of the population” rolling out a process that he said was “cushioned in legislative language”. He charged that it was “fraudulent and totally misleading” and should be punishable in terms of the law.
“South Africa has processes and structures such as the National Economic Development and Labour Council, the Cabinet and Parliament, where all policies for our labour market place are agreed upon before being rolled out. We therefore can’t have a group of cowboys pausing [sic] as concerned citizens and yet the end result of their actions is to frustrate and impede the very law they purport to support,” Manyi said.
He also slammed Solidarity for being “still lily-white and male dominated” and for claiming to be the secretariat of “among others, organisations such as the Afrikaner Bond and the Voortrekker Federasie”.
According to the Solidarity website, its code of good practice for affirmative action focused “on the protection of members of the non-designated group, within South Africa’s policy of affirmative action”.
Spokesperson Jaco Kleynhans said: “Affirmative action can only succeed if it redresses historical discrimination without creating new forms of discrimination, and the code provides guidelines on how this may be achieved.”
He said the guidelines included that a new entrant to the labour market should not be discriminated against on the grounds of colour and that only South Africans should benefit from affirmative action.
Kleynhans confirmed that a delegation from Solidarity met the commission on Wednesday. It was led by Dirk Hermann, deputy general secretary of the union. — I-Net Bridge