'We come from an extremely fractured and disgusting past when apartheid was one of the governing features of employment in South Africa. Apartheid almost destroyed South Africa and was certainly a horrific piece of social engineering.’ Picture: Armand Hough/Independent Newspapers
We have numerous pieces of labour legislation in South Africa today which support social engineering and the structuring of employment of individuals based on race.
I have never supported social engineering of any nature and I do not believe that criteria based on race, colour, creed, sex or any other arbitrary ground is useful or will be successful in the future.
We come from an extremely fractured and disgusting past when apartheid was one of the governing features of employment in South Africa. Apartheid almost destroyed South Africa and was certainly a horrific piece of social engineering.
We saw this in many other jurisdictions around the world, including Nazi Germany just before the second world war. Ideally, people should be employed purely because of their skills and abilities.
It is also fully understood that many individuals, like we have in South Africa today, do need help because of the disastrous apartheid regime. The majority of South Africans were ill-treated, were given inferior education and were denied the ability to work in many positions and industries.
It is therefore understandable to try and ensure that those people who suffered under apartheid would try and get as much help as possible.
This help granted to those who were previously disadvantaged is subject to the individuals’ ability to do the job and also subject to a “sunset clause”. A sunset clause means that after a certain amount of years, it is deemed that the environment no longer needs a regulation of this nature.
It is then up to the individual to better themselves through education and training. Unfortunately, our education system in South Africa was badly damaged and many of the current people wanting to enter into the workforce had not been fully and properly educated to compete on an equal basis with those who have had private schooling.
There is also the issue of discrepancy in generational wealth where some individuals whose families were advantaged during apartheid were able to amass a certain amount of inheritance built up on the past.
So, it is therefore clear that the discrepancy between some families and others is enormous. It is also understandable that our constitution clearly called for redress and clearly outlined the necessity to help those who were disadvantaged in the past.
We have now had 30 years since the demise of apartheid and the introduction of a democratic government.
Our democratic government over the past 30 years has not been fair to those who come from families who were disadvantaged under apartheid.
The disadvantage unfortunately continued because of the failure of our government. It is now possible for this to be recognised by a government of national unity so that we can ensure that the future workforce in South Africa has equal opportunities.
It is a long and hard road to travel but we need to ensure the broken systems are tackled as soon as possible.
For instance, basic education has to be completely overhauled and we as citizens need to put our faith in new Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube.
On reading independent news, it becomes clear that Minister Gwarube is tackling basic education with great zeal.
We also need to ensure that we can bring in individuals to train the South African workforce.
Again, our government did not allow this in the past. This was tantamount to denying South African workers to get proper training.
We have seen that new Home Affairs Minister Dr Leon Schrieber is looking at this carefully and is going to ensure that we bring in highly qualified and trained individuals so that these qualifications can be passed on to South African workers almost immediately.
Again, I read with great glee the many articles in the Cape Argus newspaper and its counterparts about the enormous strides taken by Home Affairs.
One of the industries which is the gateway to employment is agriculture.
Once again over this past few weeks, the Cape Argus has reported how Minister of Agriculture John Steenhuisen is moving with great haste to support previously disadvantaged small farmers by ensuring that they have access to training, loans and a plethora of government help.
The above being said, it must be recognised that we still have legislation such as employment equity on our law books. It is therefore important for every business to remain within the law until we eventually remove all race-based legislation from our statute books.
* Michael Bagraim is a veteran labour lawyer.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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