Monday, February 16. Deadline for submission of written comments on the Employment Equity Bill . . .
There was an incident that I came across quite recently where the managing director of a large and progressive company told a group of employees that limited opportunities existed in the future for most white males.
The MD made the comment in the context of explaining plans for the implementation of proposals contained in the Employment Equity Bill.
The Bill, approved by the cabinet late last year, is expected to be passed by parliament in the current session.
The comment was not malicious, but was nevertheless hugely demoralising to white male staffers present. It was a rare public manifestation of a common fear among many whites that apartheid in reverse is about to become a feature of the new South Africa.
Is this the case?
The Democratic Party would have us believe so. In a document called The Death of the Rainbow Nation: Unmasking the ANC's programme of re-racialisation released at the opening of parliament, the DP launched a scathing attack on the Bill, claiming it undermines the rights of minorities.
But the DP's document lacks context. The constitution makes provision for affirmative action by recognising that measures to ensure freedom from discrimination are necessary to remedy pervasive inequalities which define our society. The Bill gives substance to those measures.
Four years into democracy, significant inroads have yet to be made into the traditional racial exclusivity of middle and senior management. A 1996 survey of 107 organisations showed that in the top managerial ranks of companies, Africans constituted only 2,99%, coloureds were 0,43%, Indians 0,21%, while whites were 96,38%.
The same study found that for the lowest ranks, whites constituted 1,85%, Africans 89,01%, coloureds 7,94% and Indians 1,20%.
Not surprisingly, the International Labour Organisation found that South Africa had the highest levels of inequality of any country in the world for which the ILO had data.
Whites, says the ILO, have been artificially eased into senior management without the requisite qualifications.
At the senior management level, some companies have tried to make high profile black appointments, particularly in business-insensitive areas such as human resources, public relations and new product development.
Even so, numbers have increased only by 2,3% from 1994 to 1997. In the relatively invisible middle management category, numbers increased by even less -- 1,6%.
The Bill tries to fix these problems. It forces employers to prepare a statistical profile of employees and conduct a review of policies, practices, procedures and the environment to determine employment barriers against women, disabled persons and blacks (Africans, coloureds and Indians).
The employer then commits to a formal plan aimed at breaking down those barriers, including targets and timetables for achieving those targets.
My view is that the Bill will call a halt to the window-dressing of high-profile affirmative action males being paraded in public without real changes in company culture, particularly towards women black and white.
It firmly dismisses the divisive attitude that African advancement is more important than that of coloureds and Indians. And ensures, finally, that the disabled are no longer handicapped.
If the DP feels the process is flawed, it should take it to the Constitutional Court. The truth is that white males will continue to hold a disproportionately high share of skilled jobs for many years to come. The Bill commits employers to fixing that over time.
White males might want to consider that they are under-represented in unskilled jobs. Is this discrimination?