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. 

“We want to obtain an urgent order prohibiting the DCS from awarding the learnerships based on race as, among other things, this amounts to a quota. As part of its urgent court application, Solidarity will also ask the court to prohibit the department from making any employment decisions that are not based purely on merit until it has a proper and approved employment equity plan,” Kruger said.

Kruger explained that the DCS’s employment equity plan had expired in 2014. Moreover, the National Commissioner had extended it unilaterally and without consultation until the end of February 2015. This is contrary to the Employment Equity Act. Meanwhile no such plan, drafted in accordance with the rulings of the Labour Court and Labour Appeal Court, has been approved or adopted.

To aggravate matters human resource departments in the DCS received employment equity guidelines which are yet again based on the national demography as target. This is not in accordance with the Act or the courts’ rulings.

“The DCS is carrying on with its blatant disregard for the Act and court judgments. Neither the DCS nor the Department of Labour has responded to our requests on the matter. We therefore have no alternative but to resort to the Labour Court to intervene,” Kruger said.

Solidarity’s latest application will be heard by the Cape Town Labour Court on 26 June 2015.

Statement issued by Johan Kruger, Deputy General Secretary: Solidarity, June 21 2015