White people with disabilities completely kicked out of affirmative action

White people with disabilities will be completely kicked out of affirmative action processes, trade union Solidarity said today. According to Solidarity, the latest proposed amendments to the Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment Act (BBBEE Act) will lead to the exclusion of white people with disabilities from the definition of the designated group in the Employment Equity Act.

Solidarity today called for the inclusion of white people with disabilities in all forms of empowerment aimed at curtailing unfair discrimination during a presentation to the Minister of Trade and Industry, Rob Davies. Solidarity wants to put a stop to the increasing exclusion of white people with disabilities from empowerment and therefore lobbied for the inclusion of this group in all definitions in legislation regulating empowerment.  

The deadline for commenting on the proposed amendments to the BBBEE Act was today.

White people with disabilities are currently included in the definition of the designated group in the Employment Equity Act which regulates affirmative action, but have already been removed from the BBBEE Act's definition of the designated group. According to the new amendments, the definition in the BBBEE Act carries more weight and will apply if tension arises between the two Acts' definitions of the designated group.

What this means in effect is that if a company employs a white person with a disability, it will not earn points for its BEE scorecard. If the company appoints a well-off black person without a disability, it will earn points for the appointment in terms of the BBBEE Act. If a white person with a disability sues the company in terms of the Employment Equity Act, the BBBEE Act's definition of the designated group, which excludes white people with disabilities, will apply.

This proposed amendment to the BBBEE Act comes after a regulation of the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act, which excludes  white people with disabilities from the designated group, was adopted in December 2011. In terms of the regulation in question, the designated group will be determined by the definition of this group in the BBBEE Act, which excludes white persons with disabilities. Therefore, the state has effectively kicked white people with disabilities out of empowerment legislation in December last year.

"People with disabilities are part of the disadvantaged group on the basis of their disability and not as a result of their race," explains Dr Dirk Hermann, Deputy General Secretary of Solidarity. "The paradox here is that white people with disabilities were removed from the definition of the designated group on the basis of their race and not their disability. Black people with disabilities are still included in the definition of the designated group, however, and special provision is made for them on the grounds of their disability."

In terms of the Employment Equity Act's code of good practice on the employment of people with disabilities, people with disabilities are not unfairly discriminated against on the basis of their race, but because of ignorance and stereotypes about disability.

The code furthermore determines that the following comes down to unfair discrimination against people with disabilities:

• Unfounded assumptions about the abilities and performance of job applicants and employees with disabilities;
• Advertising and interviewing arrangements which either exclude people with disabilities or limit their opportunities to prove themselves;
• Using selection tests which discriminate unfairly;
• Inaccessible workplaces; and
• Inappropriate training for people with disabilities."

"These forms of unfair discrimination apply equally to white and black people with disabilities. The exclusion of white people from empowerment is turning South Africa's empowerment process into a purely racial process instead of a bona fide anti-discrimination process," says Hermann.

Statement issued by Dirk Hermann, Deputy General Secretary: Solidarity, February 7 2012

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