White men still dominate workplace

Sixteen years into the country's democracy, white men still monopolise top management positions, Employment Equity Commission chairwoman Mpho Nkeli said on Thursday.

"White males still dominate. They are recruited, trained and promoted more," Nkeli said in Pretoria at the release of the commission's tenth annual report.

While there had been a slight improvement from last year, the government would enforce more stringent conditions to ensure companies complied.

"We need to make it easier to prosecute, monitor and ensure compliance."

Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana said he was getting tired of "endless excuses" on why the law was not being applied as required, adding he was "quite angry" about the report.

"We want to shorten the process around fining those who do not comply by being able to fine them on the spot," he said.

"As to the size of the fines, there is talk around looking at a percentage of turnover in order to make those large employers to feel the pain."

The commission recommended an investigation into why there was resistance to progress and ending racism in the workplace.

The report showed the number of top management black employees had increased by seven percent since 2008 and 2009, while white management decreased about nine percent.

Over the past ten years the number of black Africans who were professionally qualified decreased by just under seven percent.

Similarly the number of whites also fell about six percent.

There had been an increase in coloured, Indian and foreign nationals who had qualified.

Findings for people with disabilities remained flat and remuneration on the basis of race and gender persisted, said Nkeli.

She queried why there was such resistance to change, especially considering that she felt 88 percent of the country's population could not be devoid of talent.

"The lack of black skills against the tertiary statistics and reports on black professionals in employment equity reports are excuses. The employment equity report shows whites dominating in both core and support functions."

Reviews had identified a number of examples of resistance including "grand titles" for black people with little content, job functions reduced when occupied by black candidates, remuneration disparity in line with race and a tendency to provide more training for white employees.

"Anecdotal evidence indicates that in a number of cases when appropriate black candidates are identified for recruitment, jobs are either put on hold or other excuses are found... the way we implement employment equity kills black talent."

Nkeli said the impact of slow change and resistance increased frustration for both employees and job seekers. There was also a high risk of creating a population that was educated, yet unemployed.

"We don't want employment equity to feel the contestation of resources, of dignity and equality, especially during such tough economic conditions.

"For all our sake, industry, please manage and control the change or the change will manage industry."

This sentiment was echoed by Mdladlana.

He said if South Africa could not comply with its own laws to bring about change and equal working conditions, how could the country expect the international community and investors, in particular, to take it seriously.