The DA has launched a constitutional challenge to the Employment Equity Amendment Act, which it says introduces rigid national race quotas in the workplace.
The case will be heard in the Pretoria high court next Tuesday.
Sakeliga and the National Employers Association of SA have also vowed to legally challenge the act for what they call unlawful racial quotas.
The DA’s case is brought against minister of employment & labour Nomakhosazana Meth, the Commission for Employment Equity, the speaker of the National Assembly Thoko Didiza, the chair of the National Council of Provinces Refilwe Mtshweni-Tsipane and the nine provincial premiers.
The department has 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.
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.
In his affidavit, DA leader John Steenhuisen said the amendment act could only be described as a “grand social engineering scheme”.
“Under the scheme, the minister of employment & labour would acquire the power to set numerical targets for the demographic composition of any designated employer, which includes every private sector employer employing 50 or more people, every municipality and almost every organ of state.”
He said the term numerical target was a misnomer in that what the minister set was not a target that a designated employer must aim at, but binding quotas for demographic composition that designated employers must achieve “on pain of severe penalties, including the inability to do business with the state, the cancellation of existing state contracts, compelling orders and fines”.
Penalties for noncompliance can be as high as 10% of turnover.
Steenhuisen argued that the power to set quotas was unconstitutional, constituted unfair discrimination, violated the freedom of residence and to trade, occupation and profession and was vague and unrestrained.
“Whereas in the past each designated employer’s employment equity plan would contain numerical goals appropriate for that employer’s situation, needs and the specific labour market faced by that employer, under the impugned scheme every employer’s employment equity plan must adopt the one-size-fits-all ‘target’ prescribed for that employer’s sector.”
Steenhuisen said that what set an impermissible quota apart from a permissible numerical target was primarily its rigidity. Numerical targets were inclusive and flexible employment guidelines whereas quotas were rigid and amounted to job reservation.
“The impugned scheme has the potential to create an absolute barrier to employment or advancement for members of particular racial groups in a particular area,” he said.
DA employment & labour spokesperson Michael Baigram said section 15A of the amendment act represented a “radical and harmful departure from previous employment equity law”.
“This case is not about resisting redress. It is about protecting people’s rights under the constitution, the rule of law and the livelihoods of South Africans,” he said.
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