14 August 1998

On Thursday the National Assembly will debate the legislation introduced by the Minister of Labour intended to address the legacy of racism, gender discrimination, discrimination against disabled people, and many other unacceptable practices that were a reality of the lives of the majority of people under apartheid. The SACP welcomes this bill as a framework within which equity can be won and believes it’s passing will be a landmark for workers, women at work, and disabled people. All South Africans should welcome the measures that are being introduced n the bill, as these will add to the considerable progress that is being made in transforming our country into a united, non-racial, non-sexist, democracy under the leadership of the ANC.

Critics of the bill, in the form of white business and it’s mouthpieces, the NP and DP, have given no reasons other than their own narrow, racist self-interest, why this bill should not be passed in it’s current form. The criticism that this bill reintroduces race as a category in our society is ludicrous. South Africa is still, the words of the President of the ANC, a country of two nations. The whining of the privileged group has reached a crescendo as these beneficiaries of apartheid see in this bill the beginning of the end of the whites only old boy’s network, starvation wages and cheap labour, and the cutting down to size of the existing managerial aristocracy that feeds off the sweat of most working people. The SACP condemns this spoilt attitude and cynical behaviour in the strongest terms.

The SACP is under no illusions about transformation in the world of work. The Employment Equity Bill provides an opportunity for worker’s in particular to mobilise for change. The actual implementation of the bill will require constant militant struggles by organised workers. This is particularly the case in relation to the closing of the apartheid wage gap. The bill in it’s current form gives options to employers and the Minister as to how measures to deal with disproportionate income gaps should be introduced. Like the LRA the bill gives no duty to bargain. Employers will no doubt attempt to limit the effects of this bill to the promotion and appointment of women and disabled people in particular and black people in general to managerial positions. Clearly the thrust of the bill is in favour of 4the empowerment of workers and is not intended to create an elite that benefit from it’s measures. Workers will have to remain vigilant and aggressively mobilise and campaign to ensure that through ongoing struggles the bill becomes a tool for the transformation of the workplace, for an end to discrimination, and for a progressive narrowing of the wage gap.

In short, the Employment Equity Bill is a concrete victory for the oppressed and the poor, and it is a measure that takes the National Democratic Revolution forward and the SACP supports this legislation.

Blade Nzimande
General Secretary