COSATU statement on the Department of Labour’s 17th Employment Equity Report
9 May 2017
The Congress of South African Trade Unions has noted the Department of Labour’s 17th Employment Equity Report, which shows that white people are still enjoying their inherited privileges and that corporate South Africa is not just resisting but is hostile to the transformation of the South African labour market.
This depressing report shows that white people still occupy 68% of the country’s top management positions in the public and private sectors, while Africans make up only 14.4% of top management. The report also shows that JSE-listed companies are ignoring the law‚ and that more than 21 companies have been fined for non-compliance and several others are on the verge of being fined. We have also noted the undertaking by the minister and his department to adopt harsher fines or penalties for non-compliance.
This is not at all shocking for us because companies have so far seen no reason to comply with the employment equity laws because the penalties that have been imposed on them are miniscule. Government itself has continued to do business with the very same companies giving them no reason to comply. This lack of political will and decisive leadership has not just comforted the employers but emboldened them to start pushing back. Many of these recalcitrant employers are openly defying and some are even vilifying Employment Equity laws as relics of a distant past.
We do not share the same enthusiasm with the department of labour that has welcomed an increase in the submission of the Employment Equity Reports. We cannot praise a fish for swimming.
COSATU wants to see the DoL Inspectorate Services improving its work to ensure that those who are not complying are forced to comply. The Department needs to place much focus on enforcement mechanism to deal with recalcitrant employers. Government should continue to assist employers with assistance in the development of plans.
The Department of Trade and Industry should blacklist such companies and not give them any work. Such companies should be scrapped from the Supplier Databases and be disqualified for a particular period from doing business with the public sector
According to Statistics South Africa between 1994 and 2014 the percentage of workers in skilled occupations increased in all age and all race groups, except for black Africans aged 25-34, which decreased and this implies that whilst white workers continue to be skilled, black workers are losing skills. As a result most black workers remain to be clerks, cleaners and security guards.
The lack of progress and upward mobility of black workers implies that the government policies meant to give preference to black people have failed. COSATU calls for new policies to transform the labour market to make it more equitable.
COSATU has noted that the practice in the corporate sector and by some statutory bodies of appointing joint CEO’s. This practice should be condemned and stopped with immediate effect as it has the effect of entrenching a view that a black person can never lead on his or her own ,and therefore should remain under the permanent tutelage of a white man.
COSATU also argues that , we should not over-emphasise the importance of AA because it can only improve the limited number of black workers ,who are managers and supervisors. What is needed is mass based policies that will have an impact on a larger scale and help the broader workforce. The transformation of the labour market should as a point of departure start with the banning of labour brokers, casualisation and short time -practices ,which are rooted in the racist colonial and apartheid practices of hiring of labour.
COSATU believes that we will not see any change unless we have an activist government and an imaginative legislation to be used to transform the labour market of this country . This failure to transform the labour market can be seen in the existing inequalities in South Africa, where millions of ordinary workers are still victims of the inherited apartheid-era wage structure.
The federation shall also work to build the capacity of its unions, particularly at the shop floor level to monitor compliance.
Issued by Siwe Pamla, National Spokesperson, COSATU, 9 May 2017
