Today's Labour News

Business Report writes that Solidarity announced on Wednesday that it had served a summons on President Cyril Ramaphosa, Department of Employment and Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi, the Director-General of Employment and Labour, and the Employment Equity Commission over the Employment Equity Amendment Bill of 2020.

The trade union said it had taken these steps after the President signed the bill into law last month. The Act amends the Employment Equity Act of 1998. In its court papers, Solidarity has disputed the constitutionality of the legislation and has further contended that it is contrary to international labour conventions and that the government is guilty of being in contempt of such conventions. Solidarity chief executive Dirk Hermann indicated: “The level at which the government wants to normalise discrimination in the workplace is shocking. The government wants to impose race targets that all employers in the country will have to meet. Through this law, the Minister of Labour acquires unprecedented powers that will intensify the stranglehold race has on South Africa". He went on to assert: “It is unacceptable that the government wants to usurp even more power, and then use it to exercise central control in workplaces, sector by sector. Solidarity was involved in the process throughout by participating in parliamentary processes over the proposed legislation, but these contributions and letters addressed to the Presidency fell on deaf ears. Clearly the government had every intention to implement the law in its current format, and of allocating more power to itself.”

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Dieketseng Maleke at Business Report
• Read too, Ramaphosa taken to court over ‘apartheid-style’ transformation laws, at BusinessTech
• En ook, Ramaphosa hof toe gesleep oor ‘raswet’, by Maroela Media

Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page