Affirmative action must be abolished in the public service - Solidarity

Trade union Solidarity today insisted that affirmative action be abolished in the public service, following Public Service and Administration Minister Lindiwe Sisulu's response to a parliamentary question yesterday that the whole public service has been transformed and reflects the country's demographic composition.

According to Dirk Groenewald, Head of Solidarity's Centre for Fair Labour Practices, the minister's statement implies that the constitutional objective of ‘broad' representation in the public service in terms of section 195(1)(i) as well as the goal of ‘fair' representation as embodied in section 2(b) of the Employment Equity Act have been reached. ‘South Africa, as a party to the international Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination,is now obliged to do away with affirmative action in the public service.

The provisions on affirmative action in section 2(2) of the convention clearly state that special measures can be implemented to ensure that certain racial or ethnic groups are adequately promoted and that these measures will not be regarded as racial discrimination. These measures may not, however, lead to separate rights being held in place for different racial groups and may not continue after the objectives for which they were taken have been reached.'

Groenewald said the objective of ‘broad' representation has been reached and if affirmative action is not abolished in the public service, the result will be that separate rights apply to different racial groups. ‘The majority of government departments are already representative, if not overrepresentative, but separate rights apply to different racial groups because of the state's absolute obsession with the national racial demographics. Solidarity's affirmative action case against the Department of Correctional Services is a good example of this.'

According to Groenewald, the government has a duty in terms of the Constitution, the Employment Equity Act and the international Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination to abolish affirmative action in the public service.

Solidarity's Centre for Fair Labour Practices will be holding a bush summit on Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss the government's current affirmative action model, the alternatives to this model and the possible legal avenues that can be followed to ensure that the relevant constitutional restrictions are complied with.

Statement issued by Dirk Groenewald, Head: Centre for Fair Labour Practices, Solidarity, June 28 2013

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