The battle over racial quotas goes to the heart of the ANC project.
Key topics
DA challenges ANC’s racial hiring quotas in High Court
ANC, COSATU, and Ramaphosa hit back at DA challenge
Small businesses may face collapse under strict race targets
By Jonathan Katzenellenbogen*
Within a month after its legal victory overturning the VAT hike, the DA was back in court yesterday to challenge racial quotas for hiring by the private sector.
The battle over racial quotas goes to the heart of the ANC project.
Regulations issued last month lay down different percentage quotas for previously disadvantaged people – blacks, women, and the disabled, in 18 sectors of the economy. In a large number of cases, the workforce racial composition targets for companies with more than 50 employees are specified to one decimal place. There are exemptions, but if companies fail to meet these targets in five years’ time, they could face fines of up to ten percent of their turnover. For some companies in a weak financial position, that would result in bankruptcy, and hence fewer jobs.
The start of the DA’s challenge in the Pretoria High Court yesterday against the Employment Equity Amendment Act is a landmark. Other bodies including the National Employers’ Association of SA, Sakeliga, and the Institute of Race Relations are also mounting legal challenges.
If the regulations laying down race quotas are overturned by a court decision, the way could be opened for other challenges to “employment equity” in government job hiring and black economic empowerment.
Even though the Constitution, under Section 9(2), allows the adoption of affirmative-action type measures to promote substantive equality, this has to be applied with caution. Such measures must be “fair”, cannot invade the dignity of those affected by the quotas, and it also depends on the context whether or not they are permitted. One-size-fits-all measures are not permitted under the Constitution. This gives the High Court some discretion to decide on what constitutes the delicate balance between fair and illegal.
The DA received a big boost in the polls from its campaign against VAT. To gain traction on the race quota issue, the DA needs to position this as a growth-and-jobs issue for all, which is the case. But even then, it just might be hard to make the direct connection.
Unlike its campaign against the rise in VAT, which was a pocket-book issue for all, the fight against race quotas might seem to appeal to a narrower group – mainly whites and other racial minorities. But there are growing sections of the electorate that simply don’t believe ANC promises about transformation and jobs. Their prime concern is getting or keeping a job, rather than racially dividing up the workforce along racial lines.
Slew of statements
As the racial project is so vital to the ANC project and its campaigns, the party and its allies are taking this battle over the Act very seriously and have issued a slew of statements. The ANC seems to believe that insistence on race quotas will be viewed by its support base as a promise of job prospects.
