The Congress of South African Trade Unions reaffirms its belief in the continuing need for black economic empowerment, affirmative action and employment equity.

COSATU has for long argued that these policies have not sufficiently benefited the poorest South Africans. But the conclusion has always been that to solve this problem we need more, not less, so as to spread the impact of affirmative action and empowerment to the whole of the previously disadvantaged population, the majority of whom have so far seen no benefits from it.

The federation therefore roundly condemns the ‘Congress of the People' which has shown its true colours by claiming that affirmative action and employment equity should be reviewed, on the basis that they "discriminate against whites".

COPE says it "believes strongly that affirmative action and black economic empowerment remain necessary instruments for the transformation of our country", but that it wants to review these policies to address "unintended consequences", including "race being the sole criterion of employment rather than looking at potential".

Its leader, Mosioua Lekota told a rally in Umlazi on 10 January 2009 that BEE has only benefited a select few and left the poor without jobs. But after apparently echoing COSATU's view, he then went on to argue for a completely opposite policy that is not based on race, and that "people should be hired on the basis of expertise, knowledge and skills rather than the colour of their skin".

COPE deputy president Mbhazima Shilowa, in an article in City Press, also committed COPE to the "hastened implementation" of affirmative action but again said he wanted to remove race as the sole criterion.

Race of course has never been the "sole criterion", since the legislation has also dealt with gender and disability discrimination.

But COPE's view totally contradicts the whole basis of the policy which was introduced to reverse precisely racist colonial and apartheid discriminatory policies based on skin colour. Unless the policy reverses the grossly skewed racial imbalances we have inherited, it will not be affirmative or equitable at all. If race is dropped as a criterion, the policy loses its central purpose.

As Christine Qunta explains in an article in The Star (14 January 2009), the racial discrimination process goes back to the 1911 Mines and Works Act, which set aside 32 types of jobs in the mining industry for which only white people could be recruited.

The Apprenticeship Act of 1922 made apprenticeship an entry requirement for certain trades together with a Standard 6 education, which Africans at that time rarely reached. The Native Building Workers Act of 1951 removed Africans from the scope of the Apprenticeship Act and delineated areas they could work in. It banned anyone in urban areas - in other words, outside of the "native reserves" - from employing Africans in the building industry and 11 other occupations. It gave the minister the right to decide how many learner builders could be trained each year.

Under apartheid all these discriminatory practices were refined and intensified, to extend the privileges of the whites and the exclusion of blacks from all top, senior, professional and skilled positions.

The laws on BEE and AA were designed to reverse the effects which we inherited in 1994 from decades of such blatantly discriminatory racist legislation.

In the public sector there has been a great improvement in the racial balance within the workplace since 1994, but the private sector tells a very different story.

The Employment Equity Commission's Report for 2007 shows that in September 2007, black people constituted 87,9% of the economically active population, with Africans making up 74,8%. But among top management, whites constitute 68% and Africans 18%. In senior management, whites constitute 65,2 % and Africans 18,1% (with African women constituting 5,5 %).

55% of all new appointments for top management positions are white and only 40% are black, with Africans being 28%. 61,4% of promotions at this level are white and 37% black.

Between 2003 and 2007 there was a 14.9% decrease in the number of Africans in professionally qualified positions, down to 24,1%, while the white workforce increased by 8% to 57,2%.

As if these figures were not bad enough, they have to be put in the context of a society which is becoming more unequal overall. A study by UNISA's Bureau of Market Research has just confirmed that income inequality - already exceptionally high by international standards - is on the increase. The Gini Coefficient, which measures inequality of income distribution, rose to 0.67 in 2008, from 0.60 before 1994.

The facts are stark. In the private sector we have we have demonstrably failed to rid our society of the racial imbalances we inherited, and in some categories the position is even worse. Racism and discrimination are still rife, not only in the statistics but in the day-to-day reality of life in thousands of workplaces, where racist insults, abuse and even violence are routine occurrences.

COPE is pandering to the worst prejudices of conservative whites, by floating the fantasy that it can somehow favour equity and empowerment, but in a way that avoids the unavoidable fact that the racial distribution of wealth and power in South Africa has changed little since 1994 and has to be reversed if we are to achieve any meaningful levels of equality.

Employment equity and affirmative action must stay and must continue to cover racial imbalances. It must be implemented by the new ANC government with new vigour so that the country's wealth will be shared equitably and belong to all the people of South Africa, as demanded by the Freedom Charter.

Statement issued by COSATU national spokesperson, Patrick Craven, January 14 2009