logo
DA challenges new employment equity targets in court, drawing ire from unions

DA challenges new employment equity targets in court, drawing ire from unions

Daily Maverick01-05-2025

The DA is again at odds with the government — of which it is a member — this time over the new employment equity targets set by the Department of Labour and Employment.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) is preparing for a fresh legal battle with the Government of National Unity (GNU), of which it is a member, over the new employment equity targets set by the Employment Equity Amendment Act.
DA MP Michael Bagraim's announcement of the planned legal proceedings comes two weeks after the Department of Employment and Labour (DEL) gazetted two sets of employment equity regulations. The party's decision to go to court has been heavily criticised by workers' unions.
The new regulations introduce five-year numerical targets for the top four occupational levels (junior, middle, senior and top management) across 18 sectors, ranging from finance to manufacturing.
The DEL's 2024 employment equity report found that despite comprising just 7.3% of the population, white workers held 62.1% of all top management positions.
In a statement released on Tuesday, Bagraim said the DA had launched a constitutional challenge to section 15A of the amended Act, claiming that it introduced rigid race quotas in the workplace, which would 'destroy jobs, undermine the economy and violate the constitutional rights of all South Africans'.
Bagraim, the DA's spokesperson on employment and labour, added that section15A was an abuse of state power in that the powers it gives Employment and Labour Minister Nomakhosazana Meth were 'vague, unchecked and dangerously broad'.
Daily Maverick previously reported that Nadeem Mahomed, director of employment at the law firm Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr, said the designated group the Act referred to included black people (Africans, coloured people and Indians), women and persons with disabilities, provided they are South African citizens by birth or descent.
However, Bagraim claimed that the final quotas would make it 'virtually impossible' for coloured people in the Western Cape and Indian workers in KwaZulu-Natal to find or keep employment.
The DA also claims:
Section 15A violates section 9 of the Constitution by enabling discrimination based on race.
The minister's discretion under Section 15A lacks clear legal standards, contravening the Dawood principle of administrative law.
The implementation of demographic targets disproportionately prejudices coloured and Indian communities in certain provinces, particularly the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.
Exemptions for small businesses and the government's settlement in the Solidarity case suggest an acknowledgement of the potential economic harm of the quotas.
Read the DA's founding affidavit here.
'This case is not about resisting redress. It is about protecting people's rights under the Constitution, the rule of law, and the livelihoods of South Africans.
'The DA believes that real redress does not mean implementing policies that bring more division. We believe that true transformation can only be achieved by focusing on inclusive economic growth that creates opportunity for all,' said Bagraim.
In response to questions sent by Daily Maverick, DEL chief communications officer Teboho Thejane said: 'Let's let the legal process unfold. Citizens have the constitutional right to address issues in the way they see appropriate. The department follows relevant processes when it comes to legislative framework within its scope.'
Several workers' unions had stronger words about the DA's legal challenge.
'Spurious attack'
On Tuesday, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) released a strongly worded statement expressing its 'dismay' at the DA's 'spurious attack on employment equity.
'It is alarming that the DA court papers are premised upon fake news about the Act and its regulations. Nowhere in either does it provide for any worker, of any colour or gender, to lose their job. None. Any statement claiming they do should be taken as seriously as the flat-earth hysteria on social media.
'Employment equity and transformation remains an extremely emotive matter for all workers and should be handled with the necessary care and sensitivity and not used to score likes on social media,' said Cosatu parliamentary coordinator Matthew Parks.
Parks said the amendments to the Act sought to strike a fair balance between easing administrative burdens on SMMEs reflecting SA's demographic diversity and pushing employers to do better to ensure all employees had a 'fair chance to fulfil their full potential'.
'The regulations provide ample time, eg, five years, and modest targets, well below population demographics, for employers to work towards. As with all laws, exemptions are provided for employers who have tried, but, for a variety of reasons, cannot achieve their targets,' said Parks.
He added that the union was confident that the case would be dismissed as 'legal adventurism'.
General Industries Workers Union of South Africa (Giwusa) said the union strongly condemned the DA's litigation.
'Ultimately, it reflects the commitment within the DA to roll back the progress made with respect to transformation, and it also reveals the character of the DA. The fact that the DA is not concerned with the dominance of white people in the top echelons of the corporate ladder in many sectors of the industry of this country says a lot,' said Giwusa's Mametlwe Sebei.
Sebei said that employment equity had been instrumental in ensuring that all levels in organisations were reflective of SA's diverse demography. However, he noted that there was resistance, particularly in the private sector, where operational and top management were predominantly white.
'That is the reason that it is absolute hogwash for the DA to keep insisting that economic growth and the opening of education opportunities, all of which are important, on and by themselves would address this issue. If that were so, we would not have had the lack of representation and exclusion of black people from the management of industry and public service,' added Sebei.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

The poor will always be last: The mirage of unity and the necessity of disruption
The poor will always be last: The mirage of unity and the necessity of disruption

IOL News

time2 hours ago

  • IOL News

The poor will always be last: The mirage of unity and the necessity of disruption

As South Africa once again contemplates a Government of National Unity (GNU), it is tempting to celebrate the idea of political stability, inter-party cooperation, and the so-called 'maturity' of our democracy. But beneath this surface lies a more troubling pattern; one that reveals the persistent exclusion of the poor, the co-optation of transformation discourse, and the retreat of the state from its moral obligation to disrupt patterns of inherited inequality. History has repeatedly shown us that, when elites call for unity, it is often a euphemism for consolidating power and preserving privilege. The original GNU of the post-1994 settlement, for all its symbolism, was a delicate compromise between political liberation and economic continuity. It preserved existing capital structures, deferred radical land reform, and entrenched a neoliberal macroeconomic framework that has since calcified into orthodoxy. It is no coincidence that Black poverty, youth unemployment, and rural underdevelopment remain defining features of our post-apartheid condition. Today, more than 30 million people live below the upper-bound poverty line. Approximately 60% of youth are unemployed, while more than 3.7 million people remain on the housing backlog, waiting for the dignity of a stable roof. Black Africans remain the least likely to own land. As of 2022, only 8.8% of land in private hands was black-owned, and a significant portion of this is not productive or urban land. These figures are not just numbers; they represent a systematic denial of opportunity to the very people who were promised transformation. Instead of material redress, millions of poor South Africans are locked in a downward spiral of dependency on social grants, a system which, while necessary for survival, is neither developmental nor liberatory. Over 18 million people depend on grants, and yet, every year, the promise of employment, industrial inclusion, and quality public services rings hollow. For over a decade, ambitious rhetoric about inclusive growth and social impact has failed to translate into measurable outcomes. The burden of this failure is borne disproportionately by indigenous South Africans, Black people and Africans in particular, who continue to suffer the most in a democratic society that has yet to reckon with the economic architecture of apartheid. The poor are not an unfortunate side-effect of incomplete transformation; they are a structural outcome of a society designed to exclude them. South Africa's political economy remains profoundly racialised, extractive, and elite-driven. The so-called 'black middle class' and a newly-minted billionaire class are often paraded as evidence of progress. Yet they serve largely as buffers, intermediaries between the desperation of the majority and the opulence of the few, without redistributing power in any meaningful sense. The emerging political consensus today, as represented by discussions of a GNU or coalition-based governance, is disturbingly void of any real commitment to economic justice. Instead, it pivots around the technocratic language of fiscal discipline, market confidence, and investor friendliness, language that insulates elite decision-making from democratic accountability. In this context, calls for unity function as a depoliticising mechanism. They silence dissent, dismiss radical alternatives, and pathologise the anger of the poor as destabilising or immature. Authentic transformation is not a product of elite negotiations behind closed doors; it is the outcome of struggle, disruption, and radical reimagination. If we are to honour the constitutional promise of substantive equality, we must reject the cynical notion that consensus is always virtuous. In truth, some interests are irreconcilable. A society cannot simultaneously defend property rights and guarantee land justice. It cannot shield monopolistic capital while claiming to empower informal economies. And it cannot continue to pacify the masses with promises of reform while the instruments of wealth creation remain in the hands of a tiny, racially exclusive elite. So what will it take to change the system? What will it take for Black South Africans, and Africans in particular, to participate fully in the economy and shape its architecture? It begins with reclaiming the narrative. We must stop accepting incrementalism as a virtue. True transformation requires a redistributive economic model that acknowledges historical injustice and deliberately dismantles racialised capital concentration. We must ask: what will it take to accelerate the pace of progress to see Africans leading as the majority in the corporate sector within JSE-listed companies? As of 2023, Black African CEOs led less than 15% of JSE's top 100 companies. This is not a failure of skills; it is a failure of imagination and will. It reflects the enduring gatekeeping of corporate South Africa and the superficial commitments to transformation targets that are never enforced. We must support Black businesses, not through token funding schemes or ceremonial procurement programmes, but through deliberate state-backed incubation, eased regulatory entry, access to markets, and ownership of infrastructure. SMMEs, particularly Black-owned enterprises, hold the key to mass employment, yet they face the highest barriers to financing, compliance, and market access. We must also cultivate a new generation of Black industrialists, farmers, and tech entrepreneurs. This is not about romanticising the idea of 'start-ups' in a vacuum. It is about building the ecosystem for innovation, from broadband and logistics infrastructure to research funding and digital education, so that we are not merely consumers of global technology but producers of indigenous solutions. We must build our own Silicon Valley, a Southern African tech frontier that draws from our realities, not imported templates. Finally, we must confront the painful truth that the current political elite, across party lines, is increasingly indistinguishable from the economic elite. Many of those who today speak the language of the poor have built careers by exploiting their pain. Their allegiance is not to justice, but to power. They wear the language of liberation like a mask while participating in the architecture of continued dispossession. In the end, unity without justice is a betrayal. It is unity for the sake of comfort for billionaires to retain their portfolios, for technocrats to deliver stability, and for political parties to secure positions. But for the poor, it is merely another season of waiting. Another promise postponed. Another betrayal repackaged as progress. Let us not be seduced by elegant formulations of compromise. Let us instead ask: who benefits, who decides, and who pays the price for this so-called unity? Only then can we begin to imagine a politics that does not merely include the poor, but is led by them.

uMkhonto weSizwe party's politics of convenience
uMkhonto weSizwe party's politics of convenience

The Citizen

time2 hours ago

  • The Citizen

uMkhonto weSizwe party's politics of convenience

It is ironic that the MK party has put itself forward as an organisation that fights for issues on principle when its own internal operations are not. When the Western Cape High Court in Cape Town ruled that it makes no sense for an impeached judge to sit on a body that selects judges, it struck a blow for the good guy in South Africa. For far too long a situation has been allowed to develop where the three arms of state, the judiciary, the executive and the legislature, are constantly being put at odds with each other, not for the positive development of the country, but for selfish short-term interests of corrupt individuals and their political parties. But this time, the judiciary said no, common sense must prevail. John Hlophe, who was impeached as a judge, cannot take part in the process of selecting judges. Former president Jacob Zuma's party uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party has vowed to appeal the judgment on principle and not simply to have Hlophe reinstated to the Judicial Service Commission. It is not because it benefits the country that they want this to happen, but simply that it benefits the MK to have a decision of the legislature overturned by the courts. This way, the MK, although just the thirdbiggest party in parliament, can get to 'govern through the courts', something parties of the left have always accused opposition parties to the right of the political divide, like the DA, of doing. It is ironic that the MK has put itself forward as a party that fights for issues on principle when its own internal operations are nowhere close to being based on a set of established principles that can be identified by all and sundry, especially its own members. Its recently fired secretary-general (SG), Floyd Shivambu, found out in the most painful way that where there are no defined principles, anybody can be a victim. He was fired as SG for what he thought was acceptable within the party: identifying with a disgraced fugitive. He saw nothing wrong with that but was fired for it. ALSO READ: Court finds impeached judge John Hlophe unfit to serve on JSC Truth be told though it was not for meeting pastor Shepherd Bushiri that he was fired. The MK has shown a lot of brazenness when it comes to dealing with corruption-tainted prominent individuals that it has become their political home. In the bigger scheme of things, by their own standards, a meeting with Bushiri wouldn't move their moral needle. It was simply that Shivambu had served his purpose in the party. He was parachuted in to demonstrate that the party was not a Zuma one-man-show, an ethnically defined entity based in one province, but that it had appeal to all South Africans. Sadly, the learned Shivambu fell for the ruse and centred himself in a party where he was always an unwanted outsider from day one. Shivambu probably believed that he could mould the MK into the revolutionary force that he always publicly pronounced it to be but, from the beginning, he had to contend with defending unprincipled decisions, such as wanting parliament to accept that an impeached judge was a fit and proper person. In other words, honesty and good moral judgment could be sacrificed at the convenience of the party. That judgment by the court goes to the heart of what is wrong with this country and its politics: an organisation that does not embrace democracy in its own internal operations wants to control the outcomes of a democratically elected legislature and have them overturned. The lesson for Shivambu and the MK is that good, morally-based judgments might appear expendable in achieving short-term goals, but history leans towards what is right for society. NOW READ: MK party removes Floyd Shivambu as SG

MK Party rejects Helen Zille's 'nonsensical' Joburg mayoral run
MK Party rejects Helen Zille's 'nonsensical' Joburg mayoral run

The South African

time3 hours ago

  • The South African

MK Party rejects Helen Zille's 'nonsensical' Joburg mayoral run

UMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party has rejected the Democratic Alliance's possible mayoral candidate in Joburg for the 2026 local government elections Helen Zille. Zille, who was born and bred in Hillbrow, where she worked for the Rand Daily Mail as a journalist during apartheid, has expressed her desire to run for mayor in the City of Johannesburg. She previously served as the leader of the Blue Party from 2007 to 2015 and also served as the Premier of the Western Cape for two five-year terms. In an interview with Radio 702 on Monday, 9 June, Zille said she would consider being mayor because South Africa can't succeed if Johannesburg remains broken as it is the country's economic capital, and it must be fixed. 'South Africa can be on the road to success but we've got to fix it bit by bit and I've always said that's gonna start with local government. That's why we put all our eggs into trying to win somewhere at the local level, demonstrating better governance and building from there, from the bottom up. I've always said that is the way to transform South Africa and that is what we're doing,' she said. Reacting to the news, the MK Party said 'it is nonsensical to consider the possibility of a Capetonian holding mayoral capacity in a city that she is alien to' given the number of qualified men and women who reside in the city of gold. The party said it is vital to remind 'Helen Zille and her cronies' that the current state of disarray found in the City of Johannesburg is courtesy of absent mayor Dada Morero and has resulted in the metropolitan municipality being brought to its knees. 'Dada Morero and the ANC should hang their heads in shame for emboldening a white supremacist and giving her the confidence to believe that she can adequately run this city,' MK Party spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndhlela said. Ndhlela also called on Johannesburg residents to 'reject the propaganda that the DA does not see colour. As shown in the City of Cape Town, the DA's priorities tend to shift depending on the race of the residents.' 'There are more than enough black candidates that can adequately fulfill the mayoral mandate in the City of Johannesburg. The MK Party remains steadfast in our belief that the failures of the ANC should not be recycled, nor should they rest on the shoulders of candidates who want to effect real change,' Ndhlela said. Let us know by leaving a comment below, or send a WhatsApp to 060 011 021 1 Subscribe to The South African website's newsletters and follow us on WhatsApp, Facebook, X and Bluesky for the latest news.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store