Solidarity trade union general secretary Flip Buys has sent a memorandum to President Jacob Zuma asking for controversial amendments to Employment Equity Amendment Bill to be reworded.
“The wording of the amendments will have radical consequences for coloured and Indian employees in the provinces where they are concentrated, as it marginalises them,” Buys said in the memorandum which was sent to the presidency on Tuesday.
“The amendments are not only formulated poorly, they are also based on a weak idea. Consequently, it is necessary to change both the wording of the amendments and the idea.”
Zuma said in a statement last week that coloured and Indian workers did not need to worry about the changes to the law.
The intended outcome of the proposed amendment, he said, was that the employers would have the flexibility to decide whether to use regional or national demographics, depending on their operations.
The proposed changes to the law have sparked widespread criticism from opposition parties, trade unions and the SA Institute for Race Relations.
The debate intensified after Solidarity posted a clip on YouTube of government spokesman Jimmy Manyi saying last year - when he was the director general of labour - that there was an “over concentration” and “over-supply” of coloured people in the Western Cape.
The Western Cape is governed by the opposition Democratic Alliance and political analysts have suggested that the proposed labour law could be linked to an ANC campaign to win it back ahead of local government elections later this year.
Buys insisted however, that the current wording of the amendments gave “no leeway” to employers.
“It does not give employers an option. It is not stipulated as such. If a court abides by the rules of interpreting the law, it will not reach the interpretation in your declaration.”
Solidarity had “held a mirror in front of the act” to demonstrate probable implications, he said.
“If the demographics of the economically active population are applied as it is stipulated in the proposed amendments, it implies that, amongst others, roughly one million coloured people in the Western Cape, approximately 300,000 Indians in KwaZulu-Natal and an estimated 100,000 coloured people in the Northern Cape of the economically active population is legally over represented.
“Coloured and Indian South Africans will therefore be last in the queue if affirmative action is applied. They are basically written out of the definition of the designated group.”
To execute the amendments, as they are currently formulated, will imply massive migration programmes to reach the final goal of representation,” Buys said.
“Your interpretation does not correspond with the intention of the amendments' drafters,” Buys wrote to Zuma.
“The drafters' intention was to make absolute representation the only measure.”
Buys said if the wording of the amendents is not changed, Solidarity will test the act in the Constitutional Court.
“We have already obtained legal opinions which indicate that we are likely to be successful.”
Buys said coloured, Indian, black and white employees of “various trade unions” will hand over alternative amendments to the proposed amendments to Parliament and the Department of Labour on Wednesday. - Sapa