Johannesburg - The Labour Department has warned companies and institutions that do not comply with the Employment Equity Act that they can soon lose up to 10 percent if they do not adhere to the legislation.
The department announced yesterday during the 16th release of the Commission for Employment Equity (CEE) report that there had been very little upward movement by black professionals in the workplace, while white males remained in top positions, dominating senior and top managerial posts.
Read: Pale males still holding top spots
The report said although the levels of white top management decreased slightly from 70 percent in 2014 to 68.9 percent last year, there was still little movement on the level of their black counterparts as it only rose to 14.3 percent from 13.6 percent in 2014.
The report also showed that the only employer where black people made top management in large numbers was still government, while the private sector continued to prefer white employees, with white males still on top at 59.7 percent followed by white women at 12.7 percent.
It said workplace movement showed that when white males were terminated from the system, they were reabsorbed elsewhere as preferred candidates.
Minister of Labour Mildred Oliphant said the department had had enough and the time for enforcement had come. “This is the last warning, we have agreed with the commission that they will take six months to engage with employers and employees, then after that, it will be the end of allowing that process.
“If the company or department does not comply, our responsibility is to take them to the labour court and it will decide on the first fine which is 2 percent and link it with the turnover of the company,” Oliphant said.
The labour constituency at the CEE said the debate over whether there was a shortage of skills among designate groups had to come to an end as the number of black qualified professionals, 41.2 percent this year, gave enough proof that there was a pool of candidates that could be drawn into senior and top management positions.
Attitude
CEE chairwoman Tabea Kabinde said employers had developed an attitude in dealing with employment equity appointments.
Kabinde said the findings that black chief executives had declined from 15 percent in 2012 to 10 percent last year, as recorded in the Jack Hammer Executive Report released this year, was alarming.
“There is exclusivity in the workplace, people are not being brought in for whatever reason, could it be attitudes, beliefs around competencies that people have or lack of opportunity for people to enter the workplace,” she said.
The government also admitted that it needed to move fast to acquire data for the disabled as it had no benchmark against which to weigh some of the collected data. The report said only 0.5 percent of women and 0.9 percent of disabled males were professionally qualified and in the workforce.
“As we give the statistics, we don’t have a benchmark of what is out there in comparison with what is out there in senior professional, as well as top management. We are working in the dark, but we are working closely with Statistics SA.”
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