Two business organisations — Sakeliga and the National Employers Association of SA (Neasa) — have vowed to fight employment equity targets published by employment & labour minister Nomakhosazana Meth on Tuesday.
They say the “racial quota” regulations are “unconstitutional, unlawful and harmful”.
Sakeliga and Neasa agreed at a special meeting on Wednesday to launch immediate joint legal action, including seeking an interdict against the operation of the regulations, targets and/or the act.
Meth published the five-year employment equity targets that 18 economic sectors must achieve. They set the percentages of the four upper occupational levels — top management, senior management, professionally qualified or middle management and skilled technical or junior management — which must be occupied by designated groups, namely historically disadvantaged groups of people based on race, gender and disability.
Two sets of employment equity regulations in terms of the Employment Equity Amendment Act that came into force on January 1 were published. In terms of the act, the minister must set numerical targets for each economic sector to achieve the equitable representation of people from designated groups.
The aim is to address underrepresentation of the designated groups in the workforce in relation to the economically active population. Employers will be required to comply with their own set annual employment equity targets towards the achievement of the five-year sector targets.
The first set of regulations provide standardised reporting forms, templates and enforcement tools. The department said in a statement that these regulations offered implementation guidelines for the interpretation and implementation of the act.
The second set of regulations set the five-year sectoral numerical employment equity targets for designated groups across 18 economic sectors for the four upper workforce categories.
“It is essential to highlight that designated employers with 50 or more employees, including organs of state regardless of the number of employees, are required to immediately review and align their employment equity plans with these five-year sector specific employment equity targets, to ensure equitable representation of suitably qualified individuals from designated groups across all occupational levels,” the department said in a statement.
Employers with less than 50 employees will no longer be required to prepare employment equity plans and submit annual employment equity reports. But the department encouraged them not to apply for deregistration as it planned to automate the process and maintain their details in a separate database. This would allow them to request an employment equity certificate of compliance without having to re-register in the employment equity system.
Sakeliga and Neasa said in a statement that “the sectoral targets constitute strict hiring quotas, based on race and other demographic ratios, which the state seeks to enforce under penalty of 10% of turnover”.
“The state is acting unconstitutionally, because it makes totalitarian infringements on the freedom of businesses, owners and employees to freely associate and trade.
“The state is requiring the impossible, because it demands employment practices contrary to the reality of vast variations in skills, kinship, language, culture, geography and just about everything else that has characterised employment throughout history.
“Never have the employees of all businesses everywhere reflected the same demographic characteristics — it is impossible.
“The state is also doing great harm, because it destroys the productive capabilities of the economy and pits sections of society against each other, while empowering the state beyond its proper confines,” the two organisations said.
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