Cape Town - Blacks and women are still getting a raw deal from employment equity transgressors, whose incompliance has led to the slow pace of transformation in the workplace.
Officials from the Department of Labour and the Commission for Employment Equity (CEE) blamed this on intransigent attitudes and mentalities by employers, as well as institutionalised discrimination.
Read: Pale males still holding top spots
The commission released their 16th report in Pretoria yesterday, which showed that while whites were still leading top management levels with 68.9 percent, their African counterparts were at 14.3 percent.
Coloured individuals were at 4.7 percent, while Indians stood at 8.6 percent, with the rest of the top posts filled by foreign nationals at 3.5 percent.
The statistics proved grim for the commissioners and Minister of Labour Mildred Oliphant, who had hoped the recent amendments to the act would have led to more compliance.
The report also pointed out that white males were still more likely to be recruited than their female counterparts and all other races.
Tabea Kabinde, the commission’s chairwoman, said their analysis proved there were push-back factors to employment equity, and while they planned to get to the bottom of the problem through stakeholder consultations, they had an idea as to why there was little transformation.
She identified a culture of “exclusivity” in workplaces as one of the hindrances to the realisation of employment equity.
“What we are noticing is that there could be a big problem in the area of valuing and managing diversity. As a commission, we are saying, we are moving more beyond reading the statistics and analysing them, but moving to a place where we want to engage more with different stakeholders. (We want) to really identify why there isn’t movement and why the environment is not as inclusive as it should be,” said Kabinde.
According to the report, the National Economically Active (NEA) population is dominated by African males with 42.1 percent, with females at 35.3 percent.
Yet when it came to actual seniority and promotions in the workplace, employers still preferred white men, although their NEA was at 5.6 percent and 4.3 percent for white females.
“Looking at what the report is saying, we do not have a shortage of skills as a country, but unfortunately I can say indirectly is the attitudes and mentality that some of the people have to take that particular position,” said Oliphant.
However, for some members of the CEE, institutionalised discrimination was at the root of the push-back factors to employment equity, the report pointed out.
Advocate Mikateko Maluleke, the CEE’s commissioner, said those seeking answers from the report should not only focus on the numbers, but to also look at various ideological concepts influencing the worrying trends.
“There is institutionalised discrimination which is the lived discrimination that we have not yet managed to address because it is not just the department or commission that deals with that, but society as a whole.
“It leads to systemic discrimination and that leads to the EEP (Employment Equity Plan) appointees leaving as soon as they are hired, they walk out and we call it the revolving door.
“They come and because the system or environment does not accommodate people, they leave,” she explained.
Another commissioner, Zodwa Ntuli, raised concerns with the senior positions black people were elevated to.
“What we are increasingly seeing as a trend is that senior positions are created not at the mainstream of the business, but on the sidelines and is also in areas that are ‘non-core’,” she said.
The minister and the CEE commissioners warned that if employers did not treat transformation as a bottom-line issue, they would soon find themselves in trouble.
The government said it would soon start referring non-compliant employers to the Labour Court where they would be fined between 2 and 10 percent of their annual turnover.
LABOUR BUREAU & CAPE ARGUS