Africans should be represented nine times more than coloureds. This is what the employment equity plan boils down to.
|||Cape Town - Africans should be represented nine times more than coloured people.
This is what the Correctional Services Department’s employment equity plan, which is at the centre of a landmark court case between the department and some of its employees, boils down to.
And based on the plan’s figures, when it comes to other race groups African people should be represented eight times more than whites and 32 times more than Indian people.
The equity plan, which is in the Cape Times’s possession, is the focus of a case in the Labour Court between 10 Department of Correctional Services employees from the Western Cape who are taking action against the department and Labour Minister because they believe the plan has resulted in them being unfairly discriminated against when applying for promotions.
Trade union Solidarity, also a party in the court action, believes the plan is unfair because the department’s equity targets are in line with national, not provincial, demographics.
According to the department’s employment equity plan for 2010 to 2014, its targets were based on Stats SA’s mid-year population estimates for 2005. The targets meant each race group was to be represented as follows: 79.3 percent African, 9.3 percent white, 8.8 percent coloured and 2.5 percent Indian.
Based on this, Solidarity said because coloured South Africans formed 51 percent of the province’s economically active population, compared to the 8.8 percent nationally, it would mean that there were “approximately one million extra coloured South Africans too many”. According to the equity plan, its targets had previously been slightly different.
For African people it had been 75 percent, for white people 13 percent and 9 percent for coloured people.
By June 2009, after two years and two months, the status was that there were 70 percent African people, 14 percent white people and 14 percent coloured people, meaning the number of African people was short of the target and the number of white and coloured people above.
Based on these figures, the equity plan said: “Representation of Africans is quite significant and there is marked progress in the employment of females. Down management of white colleagues in general is progressing well while that of our coloured colleagues is a bit slow. “This aspect requires some open mindedness.”
Under an analysis of the 2009 figures, it said “white males (were) still grossly overrepresented” as were coloured men.
The plan said it had been developed to fill a requirement of the Employment Equity Act. In line with the act, the department had established a National Employment Equity Committee, which advised the department.
Recommendations approved for implementing the plan included that: “Recruitment, shortlisting and appointments must be employment equity driven.”
caryn.dolley@inl.co.za
Cape Times