Pres. Cyril Ramaphosa. (Photo: Siyabulela Duda/GCIS)
Solidarity issued a summons to pres. Cyril Ramaphosa, the minister and department of labor and employment, the director-general of labor and employment and the Commission for Employment Equity means. This follows after the president introduced the fair employment amendment bill in April this year ratify It.
Solidarity disputes the constitutionality of this amendment law and asks the labor court to declare it unconstitutional. The organization argues in court documents that the law is contrary to international labor conventions and that the government is guilty of disregarding these conventions.
“The level at which the government wants to normalize discrimination in the workplace is shocking. The government wants to introduce race targets which all employers in the country will have to comply with,” says Dr. Dirk Hermann, managing director of Solidarity.
“Through this law, the minister of labor acquires unprecedented powers that tighten the stranglehold that race has on South Africa.”
Hermann said on Wednesday that the so-called race law confirms that South Africa is the most racially regulated country in the world.
“A country finds itself in a bad place if its residents’ working lives are controlled centrally from a minister’s office. And the only yardstick the minister uses is a racial yardstick.
Dirk Hermann, managing director of Solidarity. (Photo: Solidarity/Facebook)
“The minister can now establish racial quotas at sectoral and regional level and companies’ racial plans (the so-called employment equity plans) which must be applied in accordance with the law, must then comply with those quotas. These racial quotas are also a condition for the awarding of state contracts.”
Hermann says that social manipulation takes place as a result; not based on what people can do, but rather the color of their skin.
“Central planning has historically failed and central race manipulation has historically had tragic consequences.
“The new legislation is a new racial low point. The Constitution of South Africa and international conventions’ intention with affirmative action is in no way that a country’s government should be able to enforce rigid racial programs or racial quotas from a central level.”
In its court documents, Solidarity questions, among other things, the following:
- Too much power given to the minister of labor and employment, which undermines the nuanced approach to affirmative action, as required by the Constitution; and
2. The law’s inconsistency in relation to South Africa’s responsibilities under international law.
Hermann says that the United Nations’ standards for corrective measures are precisely that race should not be the only factor; that it must be flexible; that there should be a focus on training; that it must be temporary; that the socio-economic position of people must be taken into account; and that there may not be new forms of racial classification.
“South Africa’s new race laws draw a line through this. It focuses on race outputs, while the problem is skill inputs. The South African government is reckless when it comes to race and is taking it too far.
“The Constitutional Court recently ruled that the government went too far by only giving financial aid during the Covid-19 pandemic to black-owned businesses. With this race law they are going too far again.
“There is no justification for this.”
According to Hermann, Eskom is a telling example of an institution where race is the only criterion.
“Skills, skill transfer and institutional knowledge were not taken into account. As recently as this year, only racial criteria were applied in their plans to get rid of even white skilled workers.
“Today our lights are off. This is what happens when you go too far with race. Now the government is targeting the private sector.
“The problem in South Africa is not racial representation, but our skills supply. South Africa cannot have successful empowerment programs if 75% of schools and almost all technical colleges are dysfunctional. The skills situation in the country is the government’s fault and now they want to fix their training crisis by managing race centrically.
“South Africa’s workplaces cannot reflect South Africa’s racial representation if the skills supply is not representative and this cannot be remedied by central control.”
