DCS disregards court ruling – Solidarity
Trade union brings urgent application before Labour Court
21 June 2015
Trade union Solidarity will again challenge the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) in the Labour Court because of the department’s disregard for a recent court ruling. The said ruling compels the department to take regional demographics into account when setting its targets for employment equity. This judgment was handed down by the Labour Appeal Court in April this year after Solidarity had taken the DCS to court on behalf of ten DCS employees because the department wanted to apply only the national race demography in its employment policy.
The latest court application comes after Solidarity has admonished both the Department of Labour and the DCS in writing on more than one occasion during the past month to subject the DCS’s current affirmative action measures to scrutiny. Despite the intentions of the Director General of Labour, Thobile Lamati, Solidarity has not receive any feedback and would therefore have to resort to the court again.
Solidarity Deputy General Secretary Johan Kruger explained that the DCS recently invited applications for a learnership programme in the Cape region. The 193 learnerships have to be divided equally among the various race groups without taking the region’s race demographics into account. This is in breach of the Employment Equity Act as the DCS doesn’t have an approved employment equity plan at the moment. Applications for the learnerships already closed on 22 May 2015.