The DA is not in the government of national unity (GNU) to please the ANC or anyone else, its federal council chair Helen Zille said on Monday when justifying her party’s contestation of the Employment Equity Amendment Act in court.
Were it to do so it would lose voter support, she said at a media briefing to explain the DA’s challenge to the act, which is set for the Pretoria high court on Tuesday.
The DA was in the GNU, Zille said, as it believed that this gave it the best leverage to implement the policies that would make SA succeed.
The court action comes on the heels of the DA’s opposition to the budget, its legal challenge to the VAT increase and its resistance to a number of other laws, which prompted members of the ANC’s parliamentary caucus to call for the removal of the DA from the GNU.
Asked whether the DA had raised its opposition to the act within the GNU, Zille said the clearing house mechanism meant to resolve disputes was “a waste of time. It just doesn’t work at all. Everyone acknowledges that.”
She said ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula had failed to honour five of seven scheduled meetings with Zille and had arrived very late when he did.
The DA is opposing the act on the grounds that its imposition of rigid racial quotas represents unfair discrimination, which is prohibited by the constitution.
Zille rejected the ANC’s accusation that the DA was anti-transformation and anti-redress in opposing the Employment Equity Amendment Act, saying that the best path to achieving this was through economic growth, job creation and inclusion. The act would drive away investors and shrink economic growth.
“We believe the most effective form of redress is a job. The ANC’s employment equity regime continues the bitter legacy of the past because it is one of the key factors driving our country’s skyrocketing unemployment rate.
“In 2008, unemployment (on the expanded definition) was 5.5-million. By last year it had doubled to 11.1-million. That is primarily the result of failed government policies that drive away investment and discourage growth.
It is completely senseless to knowingly intensify a discriminatory regime that has already failed so spectacularly to empower economically marginalised people.
— Helen Zille, DA federal council chair
“Jobs are created by companies that invest in SA. The draconian labour regime created by the Employment Equity Amendment Act will continue to drive away investment and predictably increase unemployment.
“Companies and potential investors have repeatedly cited these social engineering laws as major barriers to investment and growth. It is completely senseless to knowingly intensify a discriminatory regime that has already failed so spectacularly to empower economically marginalised people.”
DA employment and labour spokesperson Michael Bagraim recognised that the upper echelons of the economy remained male and white but this situation would be made worse in a shrinking economy. Zille added that changing the status quo would take time.
Bagraim pointed out that the 50-employee threshold for the application of the act would encourage employers to shrink the number of employees below this threshold.
The department has published the five-year employment equity targets that 18 economic sectors must achieve. They set percentages for the four upper occupational levels — top management, senior management, professionally qualified/middle management and skilled technical/junior management — to be occupied by designated groups, namely historically disadvantaged groups of people according to 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.
Noncompliance with the act will carry 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.
“If this law is enacted, for example, people belonging to a specific group concentrated in a geographical area could face exclusion from employment based on national quotas set by the minister,” Zille said.
In his affidavit, DA leader John Steenhuisen noted that “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 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.
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