Jimmy Manyi, chairperson of the Commission for Employment Equity and president of the Black Management Forum (BMF), hit headlines this week after he proposed to Parliament that white women should be struck off a list of groups recognised by the employment-equity legislation as previously disadvantaged.
The public hearings were scheduled in May after the Commission for Employment Equity tabled its report to the portfolio committee. The report recommended that a review of the Employment Equity Act should receive ”serious and urgent consideration”. Apart from strengthening the enforcement and compliance mechanisms in the Act, it also questioned whether white women should be benefiting from employment equity.
Kezia Lewins, a sociology lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand, who made a submission to Parliament this week, said there was a need for a more ”nuanced view” of the data. Available data showed that the labour market was still very racialised, with white men, white women and Indian men still at the top of the pile.
”Employment equity is not going to be a permanent situation and a staggered exiting of beneficiaries seems like a logical idea,” said Lewins.
However, there was a need to look at the limitations of data regarding white women so as not to jump the gun.
Equidant Global chairperson Joan Joffe felt that the debate should take second place to what was needed in critical areas of service delivery. ”As a country we just cannot afford to discriminate against anyone (man or woman) who can do a job well,” she said. ”In the interests of all citizens, we need to appoint the best woman (person) for the job.”
Entrepreneur Wendy Luhabe, quoted in Business Day, said if the BMF wanted to be helpful in promoting the advancement of women, it should be investigating why companies did not have enough black women in the pipeline with proper and appropriate career and development plans.
”They should be a voice of reason and provide leadership that challenges companies to take more responsibility to grow the number of black women in the pipeline so that they are ready for senior executive positions,” she said.
The commission said black representation at top management level increased cumulatively by only 9,5% in 2000 to 2006. The increase in female representation accounted for only 9,2%, with white females accounting proportionately for the majority of the increase. It said black females hold only just less than 10% of positions, while white females ”disproportionately” hold 14,7% of all top management positions in 4 380 companies surveyed.
”White females are now over-represented at all management levels and this raises the question of whether this group should remain designated,” the report said.
Manyi told the Mail & Guardian that the hearings were a very positive step as a ”patchwork approach” to fixing problems was not ideal. The main problem area was that black people were still considered risky and were often given a management position such as corporate affairs, transformation or government liaison, which he described as areas of containment.
He commented that the ”meteoric rise” of white women was a cause for concern and that often business leaders saw the appointment of a white woman to a position as a ”better devil. In terms of white women the job is done, as far as the statistics we are receiving.”
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the Solidarity union will present their views next week. Cosatu parliamentary office’s legal coordinator, Kenneth Mutuma, said the trade unions had prepared a submission that highlights on-the-ground cases of discrimination. The general feeling was that nine years down the line the Act had failed because it did not have specific targets and enforcement was not strong enough.
Solidarity’s presentation would deal with the employment equity report and national policy, white females and affirmative action, young people and affirmative action and white males and a code of good practice, said deputy general secretary Dirk Hermann.
He agreed that it appeared that 2006 saw a growth of white females at top management level, but called it an exceptional circumstance.
Anchen Dreyer of the Democratic Alliance said her party was unhappy about the employment equity report. She called the purpose of the workplace discrimination hearings a mystery and said it was ”racial bean counting. Up to now a lot of the submissions have been anecdotal, vague and were not even tested. As parliamentarians, we could not even question people who made submissions and, to an extent, a lot of what was said went untested.”
Public hearings
The workplace discrimination public hearings started this week in Cape Town. The hearings were scheduled after the National Assembly’s portfolio committee on labour requested that more input was needed from academic institutions, trade unions, Chapter 9 institutions, government departments and other interest groups, after they had reviewed the Commission for Employment Equity’s report.
The report has not been approved yet, but is scheduled for discussion again after the public hearings have ended.
The public hearings began this week with a submission from the Commission for Employment Equity, and the Black Management Forum. The Commission on Gender Equality also made a presentation. Two academics, a sociologist from the University of the Witwatersrand, Kezia Lewins, and a well-known expert on workplace violence, Susan Steinman, also made presentations.
Next week Cosatu and Solidarity are scheduled to make their submission. A further 37 written submissions were also handed to the committee.