POLITICS
"White males need not apply”
Thabo Mbeki |
21 July 2007
"The policy, designed to address shortfalls in the department's employment equity goals, will last at least until the end of next March and be reviewed then... 'As executives and managers, our role includes ensuring that the public service is representative,' Mr Marshall said...'This involves providing direction and leadership
by example, and demonstrating a firm commitment to an inclusive workplace.'...
"A department spokesman said last night the order was prompted in part by a precipitous drop in the number of employees hired from the designated groups this year."
Need for public education
An earlier (2004) report, said: "Racial discrimination in employment is a real concern and strong legislative measures (are) necessary to reverse or inhibit the degree to which members of (designated previously disadvantaged) groups are unjustifiably excluded from the opportunity to compete as equals...
"The overall evidence...indicates that racial discrimination is responsible for at least part of the disparity in achievements between various (black groups) and whites in the...labour market. The more important and compelling issue now is not whether racial discrimination exists, but rather how can the situation be rectified.
"Employment equity laws and regulations, such as the Employment Equity Act (EEA), are intended to provide an institutional tool to lessen the adverse impact of discrimination on designated groups. Given that the EEA has been on the (statute) books (for some time), sufficient data are now available to assess its effectiveness in enhancing employment opportunities for visible minorities."
Yet another (2002) report made the following important observations: "We have discovered not only that the gap between employment equity policy and implementation is great, but that there is extensive and multi-layered variation among the provinces in this regard. Such variation occurs both in the formulation of employment equity policy, or in its absence, and in the governmental orientation concerning the policy options available and how they should be implemented. There is also a notable expression of what we refer to as systemic frustration among the supporters of employment equity. Though specific concerns vary widely, in no province could we identify a sense of confidence that employment equity policy was appropriately and securely implemented...
"Employment equity programmes may challenge employment patterns without significantly changing attitudes. The recent backlash against affirmative action demonstrates that such incentives are understood by many (minority) group members as the special and undeserved privileging of (the) racial (majority). This should suggest to policy-makers that these programmes need to be accompanied by education that provides some historical context and analysis of their necessity."
CEE Report
In his Foreword to the recently published "Commission for Employment Equity (CEE) Annual Report 2006-2007", the Chairperson of the Commission, Jimmy Manyi, says: "This report covers the 2006/07 reporting period, which reflect(s) that the employment equity outcomes are no different to those outlined in previous reports of the CEE. Progress in implementing the Act by employers is still too slow. This snail paced movement only perpetuates and entrenches the racial and gender disparities that exist in the South African economy. This illustrates that access to opportunities still has a racial and gender bias. Another marginalised segment of the population is people with disabilities who are quietly left by the wayside."
Among its concluding remarks, the CEE says: "The Commission will be recommending that a review of the Employment Equity Act has to receive serious and urgent consideration. This review should, amongst other issues, focus in strengthening the enforcement and compliance mechanisms in the Act. The Commission is pleased that provisions of the Act have had the desired effect for some within the designated group. White females are now over-represented at all management levels and this raises the question whether this group should remain designated."
Quite naturally, and correctly, our media and members of the public have made extensive comments about this latest CEE report. Articles in the media reporting these comments have appeared under such headlines as:
* "Union questions Employment Equity Report";
* "Manyi slated over AA (affirmative action) claims";
* "Affirmative action discriminates";
* "Shrills, skills and racist ills";
* "Government policy 'aggravates skills crisis' ";
* "Parallel worlds"; and
* "Don't question employment equity".
As far as I could determine, there was no headline similar to the 2005 headline I mentioned at the beginning of this Letter, which said: "White males need not apply", and there was no mention of any public or private institution that had acted to implement such a policy.
I must balance this comment with the view communicated publicly by the "Union" referred to in the media headline mentioned above, which reads, "Union questions Employment Equity Report". The Trade Union in question is Solidarity.
Solidarity & employment equity
On its website it carries a short review of its book, "the naked emperor: Why Affirmative Action Failed". The review says: "The book tackles affirmative action head-on and takes a frank, non-politically correct, look at the widely discussed affirmative action legislation...
"Affirmative action is couched in fine words - diversity, talent, merit, opportunity, tolerance, development. But when carried out, it is always punitive. In fact, affirmative action must be punitive. It requires the government to target one group for help because of its race or ethnicity. This means it must target all other groups
for punishment. This is the logical flipside of affirmative action, but it is widely ignored. And so affirmative action leads to unintended, (but easy predictable) consequences. It increases group conflict, as resentment by the punished groups grows and the demands of the beneficiaries increase. It emphasizes group differences, rather than eliminating them. It discourages effort by the beneficiaries, who come to expect special privileges. And it destroys equality before the law".
In a 16 July 2007 press statement confirming this view, headed "Solidarity asks for affirmative action Codesa", the Solidarity Union Deputy General Secretary, Dirk Hermann, said; "We must resuscitate affirmative action. National consensus on affirmative action has been destroyed by the fact the process has degenerated into a race circus. The true objective - to correct imbalances - has been lost. Decisions are made on the basis of a race ideology that is more likely to harm the masses than to benefit them."
The statement goes on to say: "A new Codesa, (an inclusive multi-party conference), on affirmative action will have to investigate ways in which the unmet expectations of the masses may be satisfied without alienating the minority. The world is littered with affirmative action corpses, caused by the fact that one group was alienated and the expectations of another were not met."
The same hymn sheet
Reflecting the diametrically opposed point of view in this regard, the 5 July article which appeared under the headline "Don't question employment equity", listed above, reports on comments made by Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana. The article says: "A major constraint in achieving economic and social transformation in South Africa is the resistance of beneficiaries of unjust policies and practices, Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana said on Wednesday...
"'Should this resistance prove too much to handle, then transformation is doomed from the outset...The (labour market) legislative and regulatory reforms we introduced since 1995 have been hailed by some as important victories that would contribute a great deal towards the transformation of the socio-economic conditions of poor people...It is unbelievable that even today, as a nation we are still debating the relevance of our employment equity legislation.'"
Among other things, the 17 July newspaper (Business Day) comment which appeared under the headline "Parallel worlds", mentioned above, said: "We cannot get everyone to sing from the same hymn sheet on the skills issue, let alone get to the bottom of the problem. The private sector has been complaining of a lack of skills in critical areas for several years, and the latest Grant Thornton international business report survey confirms that this is considered the main impediment to expansion for 58% of medium to large businesses. Yet the chairman of the state's Employment Equity Commission, Jimmy Manyi, remains adamant that there is no shortage of skills, just a lot of racist employers who won't give blacks the break they deserve...
"And most companies are still trying hard to comply with the employment equity and affirmative procurement legislation, partly because of the big stick Manyi and others wield. But they find it increasingly difficult to do so without seriously compromising their ability to deliver on the contracts they manage to secure. That is
not because they are racist, but because there seems to be a disjuncture between Manyi's world and the parallel universe inhabited by business.
"(Minister) Erwin clearly recognises this, even if he prefers not to risk scaring off potential foreign investors by telling the full story, and so do Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, President Thabo Mbeki and anyone else with a vested interest in ensuring things happen on a practical rather than merely theoretical level."
The newspaper made the critically important point that - "We cannot get everyone to sing from the same hymn sheet on the skills issue, let alone get to the bottom of the problem."
Reconciliation & transformation
The bigger problem, going beyond the critical skills issue - the bottom of the problem - is that, as illustrated, for instance, by the Solidarity comments, is that we cannot get everyone to sing from the same hymn sheet on the important question of how to build a non-racial South Africa, and the role of affirmative action in this
regard.
There is no doubt that these are challenging questions that our country as a whole must subject to continuous examination and critical review. This is particularly important because, apart from anything else, the very medium and long-term stability of our democracy depends, critically, on our collective ability visibly and meaningfully to sustain the advance towards the creation of a non-racial South Africa.
For at least a decade now, consistent with the views of the ANC, I have argued that we must achieve a balanced and integrated approach towards the related and interdependent national objectives of genuine national reconciliation and fundamental social transformation. Objectively, this is a difficult task.
An important part of this difficulty arises from the fact, which we have consistently sought to emphasise, that this balanced and integrated approach can only be realised if we get our historically and still divided society to "sing from the same hymn sheet" about the mere, but critically important, reality of the ineluctable organic
interdependence between genuine national reconciliation and fundamental social transformation.
The demon lies in the fact that, naturally and understandably, the historical beneficiaries of colonialism and apartheid, who constitute a national minority, aspire both for genuine national reconciliation and minimal change with regard to their inherited and especially privileged socio-political-economic position.
It also lies in the corollary fact that, naturally and understandably, the historical victims of colonialism and apartheid, the national majority, aspire both for genuine national reconciliation and the fundamental alteration of their inherited and especially underprivileged socio-political-economic position.
The foreign experience
I began this Letter by quoting a 2005 media report and two (2004 and 2002) other reports. I am certain that most readers of this Letter would be keen to establish who, in South Africa, published or originated all three reports. To save our readers from engaging in a fruitless exercise, I must now confess that the three reports are not SOUTH AFRICAN, but CANADIAN.
(I slightly altered the parts I have quoted, without changing both the major verbatim portions of the quotations and their substance. The alterations sought only to disguise the Canadian origin of the reports. The media organisation I quoted is the 19 November 2005 edition of the "National Post", which reported on an e-mail circulated in the Canadian Department of Public Works, written by then Deputy Minister, David Marshall. The 2004 and 2002 reports were issued by "Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations", and the "National Anti-Racism Council of Canada", respectively.)
If this serves to give us as a nation any sense of comfort, the Canadian quotations convey the unequivocal message that we are not alone in the challenging struggle to contend with the difficult issue of employment equity, placed within the context of the effort to build a non-racial society. Immediately, to substantiate this
conclusion, I can also quote New Zealand and Trinidad & Tobago reports which focus on public policy (legislative) interventions in these two countries to address the issues of gender and racial equality, respectively. (Canada adopted its own Employment Equity Act (EEA), thus entitled, in 1986, and "significantly amended (and strengthened it)", in 1995.)
Above I cited remarks made by Solidarity claiming that, "The world is littered with affirmative action corpses, caused by the fact that one group was alienated and the expectations of another were not met". The majority of the population of Canada is white. Canada's EEA was drawn up by this majority to uplift what the Canadians describe as the "Visible Minorities".
Even if the EEA has not met the expectations of these minorities, as the 2002 and 2004 reports indicate, it is hard to believe that the majority became "alienated" by the implementation of its own policies. I have no information that this majority became "alienated" even by the dramatic short-term measure implemented by the Canadian Department of Public Works in 2005, reported by the "National Post" under the headline - "White males need not apply".
Neither do I believe that the New Zealand public will be "alienated" by further steps to accelerate gender equity as announced on 17 July 2007 by Minister Lianne Dalziel, to ensure that New Zealand fully complies with the UN Convention on the Eradication of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Solidarity will have to produce the "affirmative action corpses" it claims "litter" the world!
However, I must also emphasise the point that this Letter is not about point-scoring. It seeks to draw attention to the critical challenge our nation faces to "sing from the same hymn sheet" as it responds to the fundamental challenge to create a non-racial and otherwise equitable society.
Facts & figures
Among other things, the 2006/07 CEE Report says: "Blacks (i.e. Africans, Coloureds and Indians) represented 22.2% of all employees at the Top Management level. Black females represented 6.6% (i.e. African female 2.9%, Coloured female 2% and Indian female 1.7%). Black males represented 15.6% (i.e. African male 8.4%, Coloured male 2.7% and Indian male 4.5%).
"Whites represented 74.9% of all employees at this level. White females accounted for 14.7% and White males accounted for 60.2%. Foreign nationals represented 2.9% of all employees at this level. Foreign females accounted for 0.3% and foreign males accounted for 2.6%
"At the Top Management level, Black representation is approximately a quarter of the Economically Active Population (EAP) which stands at 88.2%. White representation at this level on the other hand is about eight-and-a-half times their EAP which is 12.8%. The representation of women is less than half of their EAP which is 45.8%.
"White women representation at this level is nearly two-and-a-half times their EAP and White men are five times above their EAP. At approximately seven times away from their EAP, proportionally Africans are the least represented at this level. Foreign national representation at this level stands at 2.9%"
These figures represent the actuality of our national situation, namely, the persistence of the racial imbalances in terms of the management of the critically important sector of the economy. Other figures in the CEE Report would, in the main, reflect the same reality.
This confirms what every honest South African knows, that whatever the reason, and despite the fact of our own Employment Equity Act and other interventions, understandably, we have not succeeded in our 13 years of democratic rule to eradicate the 350-year-long legacy of colonialism and apartheid, as we could not.
The question that arises, as addressed in the CEE Report, is - what else should we do to accelerate our progress in this regard, relative to what we have achieved in the last 13 years! But more problematic is the challenge posed by Business Day - what should we do to ensure that "we sing from the same hymn sheet"!
The immediate relevance of the question posed by this newspaper is confirmed by the announcements made by Solidarity in response to the CEE Report. This trade union has announced that it questions the very authenticity of the statistics contained in the CEE Report.
The media report that appears under the headline we have cited, "Union questions Employment Equity Report", says: "Trade union Solidarity would commission an audit of the department of labour's employment equity Report because it questions its validity...'Manyi and his commission...draw conclusions from unscientific figures that are not representative of the total South African labour market,' (Jaco) Kleynhans, (Solidarity spokesman), said."
What this means is that we cannot even "sing from one hymn sheet" about the raw facts that seek to answer the question - what, objectively and factually, constitutes present-day South Africa! To present this challenge in the most basic terms, because of our historical experiences, it is not beyond us to differ "robustly" - to use a hackneyed expression in this context - about whether the zebras in the Kruger National Park are black-and-white or white-and-black, and ascribe this difference to "playing the race card"!
But as we have said, the matters highlighted by the CEE Report, and the subsequent public debate, are about more than point-scoring. They are about whether our young democracy will continue to grow without major social upheavals. (Incidentally, with regard to the demand that is sometimes made, that we must announce an end-date with regard to our affirmative action policies, the CEE Report suggests an objective criterion we might use in this regard. It reports that the EEA has over-fulfilled its objectives with regard to the employment of white women, certainly in the context of the management echelon. It therefore argues that this justifies the removal of white females as a targeted group in terms of the EEA, which would reduce the regulatory burden on both the public and the private sectors.)
Challenge of poverty
Relevant to the central point about building an equitable, non-racial and non-sexist society, earlier this month the British Joseph Rowntree Foundation published a report which said that wealth inequality in the UK is now at a 40-year high. ("Poverty and Wealth Across Britain 1969 to 2005".)
According to a 17 July 2007 report published by the media organisation that focuses on business and economic matters, "Bloomberg", "The gap between rich and poor is at a 40-year high and is leading to an increasing segregation in British society that is pulling the middle class apart, a report published today shows...
"Wealthy households are becoming richer and increasingly detached from the rest of society. A middle group that is considered neither rich nor poor makes up about half of the population today, compared with two thirds in 1980...
"Today's report shows that policies introduced by (then Finance Minister Gordon) Brown, (and now Prime Minister), while helping the poorest in society, have done little for the middle class. The richest 1 percent of the population owned 24 percent of household wealth in 2002 compared with 17 percent in 1991, the report said...
"(Ben) Wheeler, (a research fellow at the University of Sheffield), said today's report shows that more people are becoming part of a group that can't afford to keep up with socially-accepted measures of wellbeing, such as being able to replace worn out shoes, a broken television or go on holiday once a year. Conversely, more people are able to opt out of using state health and education as they become richer and 'distance themselves' from the rest of society.
"Richard Lambert, director general of the Confederation of British Industry, the country's biggest employers' group, urged Brown to take steps and that issues such as inequality shouldn't be 'left to fester'...
"The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said in its June 20 Employment Report that the greater movement of global capital has pushed up inequality and made it harder for poorer workers to demand higher wages."
The UK is a highly developed capitalist country that is much richer than our own. As of today, the UK has been led continuously by a Labour Party government for at least the last 10 years, which sought to build on the achievements of pro-poor policies introduced at least immediately after the end of the Second World War, 60 years ago. And yet this month, the Rowntree Foundation reported that the British rich are getting richer, and the British poor, poorer.
This brings into sharp focus the challenge we face vigorously to address the racial and gender imbalances in the distribution of wealth, income and opportunity all of us inherited from centuries of colonialism and apartheid. The issue of employment equity is critical in this regard.
This includes the challenge of skills development, to enable our country to meet its human capital requirements with properly qualified people on an equitable racial and gender basis. This challenge faces both the public and the private sectors. It also confronts both black and white South Africans.
A shared imperative
It constitutes a shared imperative without whose accomplishment the former beneficiaries of colonialism and apartheid cannot achieve their hopes for national reconciliation, and without whose realisation the historical victims of colonialism and apartheid cannot attain their dream of national reconciliation, which would give meaning to the vision that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white.
This is the fundamental message conveyed by the "Commission for Employment Equity (CEE) Annual Report 2006-2007". This is what Minister Mdladlana meant when he said: "Should this resistance (to employment equity) prove too much to handle, then transformation is doomed from the outset."
*This article first appeared in ANC Today
