Of red herrings and obstructionist tendencies from some parts of the South African leadership in commerce, and labour, has been the order of the day, since the announcements of the changes to the EE Act. Put bluntly- swart gevaar!
For the past 16 years, in some companies and sectors, there has been lost opportunities to the magnitude of 68% and above, where natural attrition presented opportunities for transformation. Rather put bluntly, these companies failed to appoint from the designated employee groups, and continued to appoint as usual from a small pool of White males only. Now that the State is intervening by tightening the screws, they have the audacity to cry 'foul'. Some narrow-midend labour experts, and self-styled, and economists suffering from dead-end thinking, prophesy doom, without reflecting on the selfish and short-sighted approach of the representatives of capital of the past two decades.
If we all cared to observe the input, throughput, and output of our education, and corporate system, without being anecdotal about it, we may just find our answer to the skills shortage challenge. It will prevent its hackneyed use as an excuse for lack of representation of the designated groups in the boardrooms, and other platforms of leadership in South Africa. We may just discover that brakes are being deliberately applied to retard progress of some, though they may share the same tertiary qualifications, with their counterparts.
Corporate SA leadership has a case to answer regarding lack of progress since the early 80's, when most of the discriminatory legislation in the workplace was repealed. All of the post 1994 transformation-based legislation was an attempt to nudge business in the right direction without being interventionist, on the part of government.
Business failed to play ball, and the initial zeal with which it moved in the early 90's was killed through poor enforcement capability, on the part of government, as well as goodwill expectation (by government) from business leadership.
Business leadership should see this as a second chance to transform, so that all may benefit, without bringing organisation competitiveness to its knees.
President says amendments will not have negative effect on coloureds or Indians
Current provision in the Act: "demographic profile of the national and regional economically active population (EAP)". Proposed change in the Bill: "demographic profile of the economically active population".
It is important to note that nowhere in the proposed change is there a proposal to remove 'regional' and leave 'national', in fact, both 'national and regional' are removed. The reason for removal of the two elements is that employers have been enquiring over the years from the Department of Labour how they should implement both regional and national demographics of the EAP in their workplaces. As a result of these enquiries, the change is being proposed.
The 10th Commission on Employment Equity Report released by the Department of Labour in July 2010 also revealed that transformation in the workplace remained very slow. The report indicated that 10 years after the introduction of the Employment Equity Act, white men continued to hold 63% of top management positions in the private sector. African women are at less than 6% and coloured and Indian women were at one percent each.
Statement issued by The Presidency, March 7 2011
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