By Levy Masiteng
The Democratic Alliance is in talks with its lawyers on the government’s amended employment equity regulations.
It has a number of issues with the new regulations, including that employers must determine the race of their employees if they refuse to disclose it themselves.
This was revealed by Employment and Labour Minister Nomakhosazana Meth in a Parliamentary reply. She said employers would have to use “generic” definitions of persons of colour or rely on “reliable, existing historical data” to classify their employees.
DA employment and labour spokesperson Michael Bagraim said employees should not be forced to disclose their race, and employers should not be tasked with determining it and perpetuation of racial divisions.
“The DA is outraged and will vigorously fight against a pronouncement by the minister… that her department will make employers self-implement sectoral racial quotas, including forcing employers to decide and declare the race of their employees, where employees are not willing to disclose their race,” he said in a statement.
“The DA confirms that we are consulting our lawyers and commit to challenging this all the way through the courts.”
Most of the country’s unions support the amendments, with the SA Federation of Trade Unions condemning any legal action by the DA.
Earlier this year it accused the party of protecting the economic privileges of the white minority and shielding untransformed corporations.
“This legal action is not about ‘non-racialism’ or ‘merit’ — it is about protecting the economic privileges of the white minority,” Saftu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said.
The latest Commission for Employment Equity annual report states that white individuals occupy 62.9% of top management positions, despite making up only 8% of the economically active population, and African individuals hold 16.9% of the top posts, despite comprising 80.7% of the economically active population.
Labour and the government has argued that that the employment equity amendments are necessary to close the gap between constitutional aspirations and economic reality.
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