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Affirmative action to the testAmid increasing calls that a wider debate on the issue of race in South African society is required, the content and basics on which affirmative action in the workplace is practised in the country is to be put to the test in our courts by the trade union, Solidarity. At the same time, the race card is increasingly being pulled whenever a management/governance controversy hits the headlines. There are strong and emotional arguments in play on both sides of the divide on this issue.
The first of 10 cases brought by Solidarity against the state, not aimed at affirmative action per se, but at how it is implemented in the South African Police Service (SAPS) and the Department of Correctional Services (DCS), was to commence in the Labour Court in Johannesburg yesterday (Monday, 16 November).
Solidarity charges in its nine cases against the SAPS that the police had, in some cases, placed an absolute barrier on the promotion of white police officers. Because of the way affirmative action is implemented, jobs remained vacant while suitably qualified white officers were available on the grounds of “representativity” when suitable black candidates were not available.
While there is a constitutional provision that allowed for affirmative action, there was also a constitutional obligation resting on the police to prevent, combat and investigate crime, the trade union argues.
It further argues that this practice does not only constitute discrimination against its members, but also prejudiced the public in general because it is placing ideology ahead of the need for service delivery.
Whether Solidarity wins its cases or not – and it has declared its willingness (even eagerness) to go the full distance to the Constitutional Court if need be – the cases are almost surely bound to set new legal precedents in equality and affirmative jurisprudence.
On the policy and attitudinal front, there seems to be a reassessment developing as to how the race card is played whenever there is a controversy (real or perceived) around matters of top management or governance – be it who heads up a particular ministry in government, or the mismanagement of the Caster Semenya saga.
The latest example, which has finally brought some perspective into the whole debate, was when the race card was pulled against Bobby Godsell in the Eskom management debacle.
I remember a statistic from the early 1980s used during the debate on the need for reform or not, between the “verligtes” and “verkramptes” within the ranks of the then governing elite, which pointed out that the ratio of middle management to staff in West Germany was one to six.
In South Africa, where a white minority was attempting to manage the country on its own, the ratio was one to 42, which led not only to management over-reach, but also the appointment of unsuitable people to management position purely on the basis of race.
By playing an almost purely numbers game, where competency plays only from the bench when it comes to the mix at management level, we seem to have again fallen into the race trap, with the citizenry as the big losers while available talent goes to waste.
It is against this background that a respected black columnist in a daily paper last week lamented the fact that there are so many black managers and aspiring managers who seem to be making careers from simply being black.
I also recall an interview during the early 1980s with an African American professor of Political Science at Columbia University in New York, who complained about the quota approach of affirmative action in his country because it devalued what he has achieved as an individual.
Solidarity seems to make a valid point when its deputy general-secretary Dirk Hermann argues that it would support affirmative action if it were “input rather than output
focused. The focus should be on providing training and development to designated groups. But the problem is that the focus is on the numbers.”
This “think” piece was compiled by one of our staff writers
