Solidarity heads to court to challenge affirmative action legislation

Trade union Solidarity will head to Labour Court on Wednesday to challenge sections of the South African affirmative action legislation and possibly amend the Employment Equity Act.

The union is challenging government to implement the recommendations of a report on equality released by the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) which states: “Affirmative actions should be applied in a more nuanced way, socio-economic indicators must be taken into account and that the way in which affirmative action is applied gives rise to a practice of race quotas.”

Solidarity chief operating officer Dr Dirk Hermann told BusinessTech that government had not made adequate changes to the Employment Equity Act, despite the country’s human rights watchdog having found its “unnuanced racial approach” to be unconstitutional.

He maintains that the government had not taken the SAHRC report on review and “for as long as the findings and recommendations are not legally challenged, those findings and recommendations stand”.

“Government had 60 days to challenge the findings. A year and a half have since gone by and they have thus forfeited their right to challenge the report.”

Herman said the next phase of the plan would be to possibly amend the Employment Equity Act.

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.