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26 NOVEMBER 1997

Distinguished guests and members of the press,

It is my pleasure to present to you an Employment Equity Bill for public debate and for consideration by our negotiating partners at NEDLAC. Cabinet approved this Bill on Wednesday last week.

That the system of apartheid has left us a legacy of inequality is a truism which we all accept. In the labour market this inequality reveals itself in the distribution of jobs, occupations and incomes according to racial, gender and disability.

Well-known centrepieces of apartheid job reservation included:
* the 1956 Mines and Works Act which prohibited black mineworkers from getting blasting certificates,
* the demarcation of the Western Cape as a Coloured labour preference area,
* the web of pass and influx control laws which limited where black people could live and work,
* the Transvaal building industry which barred black people from more skilled jobs such as bricklaying, plastering and painting, and the
* The 1956 Industrial Conciliation Act gave the Minister of Labour enabling powers to make job reservation determinations.

This discrimination against black people - and by black we mean African, Coloured and Indian people - was combined with discrimination against women and people with disabilities.

Apartheid practices and other factors outside the labour market, such as housing, education, health care and transport, also contributed to the inequalities of our society.

We cannot undo these inequalities by simply outlawing discrimination. Our constitution, which underpins our new democratic order, has already done that. To give practical effect to our constitution, we need specific programmes to redress these imbalances.

This Employment Equity Bill seeks to eliminate unfair discrimination in employment and provides for affirmative action to create the equality to which we have committed ourselves.

The Bill is not about simply getting black people, women and disabled people into management positions.

It is also about ensuring that our human resources are employed in the best possible way so that all employees - from the shopfloor to top management-are able acquire and use their skills to benefit our economy.

Besides adopting fair hiring practices, we expect firms to re-examine their grading and training system and their basis for promotion of employees.

The Bill balances self-regulation by employers who will develop their own employment equity policies and plans and meaningful monitoring and enforcement of such practices and policies by government.

This balances is captured in three key areas.
* First, the Bill prohibits unfair discrimination on any of the grounds outlined in our constitution. This section of the Bill essentially transfers already existing provisions from the Labour Relations Act to this piece of legislation, where they more appropriately belong.
* Second, the Bill requires all companies employing fifty or more people to develop equity plans. These plans should state how the company intends removing discrimination in the workplace, and how and by when they plan to achieve a diverse and representative workforce.
* Third, it has appropriate enforcement measures and advisory mechanisms to ensure its effectiveness.

But it is not my task to take you through the detail of the Bill. Mr Loyiso Mbabane who is the Director of Equal Opportunities in the Department of Labour will do this . I want to talk to you about the government's reasons for introducing this draft law.

Why have we introduced this Bill? The answer is simply that workplace discrimination is still with us in practice.

Several studies show that management is still dominated by white men, who make up a small fraction of our population. The grim reality is still that black people continue to perform almost all lower-paid and lower-skilled jobs.

The Labour Market Commission, which conducted an extensive investigation into South African labour market trends in 1996, found that South Africa's skewed income distribution - the most unequal in the world - was reflected in the fact that 20 percent of income earners capture only 1,5 percent of the national income. In contrast, the wealthiest 10 percent of households capture 50 percent of national income.

And this grossly skewed income distribution, is biased in favour of whites, with poverty concentrated among black people. The Labour Market Commission found that 65 percent of Africans, 33 percent of coloureds, 2,5 percent of Indians and a mere 0,7 percent of whites live in poverty.

In our Green Paper on Employment and Occupational Equity, which we published in 1996 and which was designed to lay the basis for this Bill, we pointed out that 33 percent of black people earn less than R500 a month, compared to only five percent of whites.

The Breakwater Monitor's survey in 1996 further highlighted apartheid's distortions of the job market. According to the survey of 107 organisations, Africans occupied only three percent of top managerial positions (Paterson Grade F), Coloureds 0,4 percent and Indians 0,2 percent. On the other hand, whites occupied 96 percent of these top positions.

The same study found that in the lowest grades (Paterson Grade A) Africans constituted 89 percent and coloureds 8 percent - far more than their percentage of the total population.

The problem is not limited to managerial positions. It is reflected generally in occupation. The International Labour Organisation country review of South Africa in 1996 found that most artisans and apprentices were white and that where Africans have managed to enter the system this has been at the lower end of the skill spectrum.

By 1990 about 10 percent of Africans were qualified artisans but they were concentrated in relatively low-skilled trades, such as, welding, boiler-making, fitting and sheet metal work.

Whites, however, continued to dominate more high-skilled trades such as the metal, engineering, electrical and motor industries.

There were also very few Africans in the lucrative financial and service sectors of our economy. Rather, they were found mostly in the mining and construction sectors. Although whites made up only a third of formal employment, they comprised 60 percent of employees in the financial services sector. Africans made up only one percent of financial services employees.

This will not change overnight and unless we take steps to encourage change we run the risk that old patterns will continue. The fact that four years into the new democratic order our labour market remains so skewed bears testimony to the need to take steps to change.

Apartheid has been cruel to the black majority. It deprived us of decent education and then used this as an excuse to keep us out of decent jobs. It introduced the colour bar, reserving certain jobs for whites only.

It is only a few short years since a black person could become a skilled mineworker, or since the first black train driver was employed. And it is only since 1994 that a black person could expect to be given a senior post in the public service. In industry it is often still the case that a black person performs relatively skilled work but remains graded and paid as if she (or he) was an unskilled labourer. We must bury the industrial colour bar in practice, not just in our constitution.

The intentions of the National Party government were clearly expressed when Verwoed said that black people should not expect to become more than hewers of wood and drawers of water. Even now after we have begun to build our new democracy, we should not underestimate how much of this attitude still remains, even if not openly expressed. This Bill says that when it comes to hiring, training and promotion, we want a fair deal for all workers.

Racial inequality is evident when we look at figures on income distribution, on unemployment rates, or on occupational categories. Two in every five blacks are in labouring jobs compared to only one in every fifty whites. Unemployment rates are significantly higher among blacks than whites. And there are indications that many black workers are still not paid the rate for the job, and often earn less than whites doing similar work.

But this Bill is not only about tackling racism. It also deals with discrimination against women and against people with disabilities, among others. We want to build a South Africa with a diverse and representative workforce. We want to see a workforce that has harnessed and reflects the variety and strengths of all our people.

Why do men fill most of the top jobs in business, government and even in unions still? Why are there so few women working in transport and on the mines? Why are there so few men working in the clothing industry?

Provisional figures from the 1996 census figures show that women comprised 52 percent of our population. But they occupied only 12,2 percent of senior management posts in 1996, according to the Breakwater Monitor survey.

We want to remove the glass ceiling which stops women from advancing.
Indeed, we want an end to the gender stereotypes that marginalise women and keep them out of certain economic activities and trades.

And why do people with disabilities find it so difficult to get decent jobs?
Estimates suggest that one in five disabled people is economically active but that only one in 100 has a job in the open labour market and most disabled people have to rely on social pensions and family support. Just because someone is blind or deaf not mean they cannot be employed, or that they must be confined to only certain, often menial, jobs.

Again we think our society could do more to capture the capabilities of our people. People with disabilities must be given the chance to get jobs in the mainstream economy.

The inequalitites and imbalances which we have described to you are not restricted to the private sector. Similar patterns of skewed occupation and employment are found in the public service.

We hope all employers and workers who are prepared to embrace the future will welcome this Bill. There are sound economic reasons for them to do so. Every time we discriminate we are inefficient. Every time we exclude someone from employment simply on the grounds of colour, or gender or disability we are throwing away our country's best resources ... our people.

We cannot compete in the global economy unless we draw on all the skills of all our people. Those who rely on the 'old boy's network' way of doing business are failing to prepare our country for the global future.

We make no apology for the fact that this Bill favours those previously disadvantaged -- African, Coloured and Indian people, women and the disabled.
We must level the playing field. The days of job reservations are now over.

Some companies have addressed the problem in a tokenistic way. We do not want employers to make token appointments of black people, woman and the disabled.

We are not asking them to employ incapable people. But we are demanding that they train their staff, that they eliminate racial discrimination in the workplace, and that they recruit from the widest possible pool of suitable candidates. And we are asking them to go to the extra mile in the interests of our nation.

I thank you and look forward to receiving your comments, which should help to enrich this Bill before it becomes law.

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