Regulations in the Employment Equity Act is an attempt to impoverish minorities and exclude them from the economy
"The FF Plus finds the regulations which the Minister of Labour, Ms. Mildred Oliphant, had issued in terms of the Employment Equity Act thoughtless and discriminatory. The party will therefore be addressing a letter to the minister in which it requests her to withdraw the regulations to prevent the party from having to take any further steps," Adv. Anton Alberts, the FF Plus' parliamentary spokesperson on Labour says.
The regulations provide that only national demographics of the country have to be taken into consideration to determine the appointment of people to professional careers and senior management positions and not regional demographics.
"This is a thinly veiled attempt of the government to appoint black people to the detriment of brown and white people in highly paid positions, exclude minorities from the economy and in so doing, impoverish them. It is well-known that white and brown people are over-represented in certain regions, such as the majority of economically active people in the Western Cape and Northern Cape being brown and Afrikaners in the Pretoria region. These new regulations will bring about that there will have to be drastic internal migration of brown and white people if they want to be considered for senior positions.
"The FF Plus will, together with the Khoi and San people bring the discriminatory regulations and the inevitable consequences thereof to the attention of the UN's Human Rights Commissioner as well as the international Labour Organisation (ILO) and the International Criminal Court. The decision of the ANC government to remove regional demographics from the definition of ‘equitable representation' for certain career categories is nothing other than discrimination which cannot be justified in terms of the Constitution and ignores international guidelines and regulations of institutions such as the UN and the ILO, of which SA is a member.
"It is also clear that the ANC government are, with these regulations attempting to circumvent the judgment of the Labour Court in the Western Cape department of Correctional Services' case, according to which regional demographics have to be taken into consideration with the appointment of personnel. The ANC government does not respect the decisions of the court and through these regulations is trying to force provinces to employ more black people.
"The so-called transformation which the government propagates and implements is in reality nothing other than social engineering of society according to which black people are helped to gain wealth and brown and white people are placed in subservient positions. The FF Plus will therefore together with other minority groups and civil society organisations campaign against this discrimination," Adv. Alberts says.
Statements issued by Adv. Anton Alberts, FF Plus parliamentary spokesperson: Labour, March 3 2014
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