News
HOW THE NEW BEE LAW
COULD AFFECT THE
CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY
Sourced from SA Government News Agency
INDUSTRY IMPACTED
Should it be passed in parliament, the EEA will have a
significant impact on businesses and their respective sectors.
John Botha, chief operating officer of Global Business
Solutions, highlighted the construction sector as an example of
an industry which will have to meet its sectoral targets by 2025.
“This means that they will have to review their employment
policies and procedures, conduct better workforce planning
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C
abinet has approved the submission of the Employment
Equity Amendment (EEA) Bill of 2020 to Parliament,
government said in a statement in February.
“The amendments will empower the minister of
Employment and Labour, in consultation with sector
stakeholders, to introduce enabling provisions for the setting of
sector-specific Employment Equity numerical targets,” it said.
“It also reduces the regulatory burden on small employers.
The bill promotes equal opportunity and fair treatment in
employment through the elimination of unfair discrimination.”
First announced in 2019, the EEA Bill will regulate the
setting of sector-specific employment targets to address
the gross under-representation of black people, women
and persons with disabilities. It will also ensure that an
employment equity certificate of compliance becomes a
precondition for access to state contracts.
A draft version of the bill published at the end of 2018
indicated that the changes being were made to speed up
transformation in the country. The bill states that while the
public sector has seen significant changes, the private sector
continues to lag behind. “It has been 20 years since the
inception of the Employment Equity Act; however, the pace of
transformation has been slow,” the bill states.
“Relative to the demographics of the Economically Active
Population (EAP) as released by Statistics South Africa
(StatsSA), marginal progress in relation to the equitable
representation of the designated groups, in particular Africans,
coloureds and persons with disabilities have been made in
the middle-to-upper occupational levels, which is repeatedly
visible in the statistics contained in all the Commission for
Employment Equity (CEE) annual reports.”
Companies in the construction sector will have to review their
employment policies and procedures.
based on anticipated workforce movement and capacitate
their employment equity committees and line managers to
ensure adherence to re-aligned employment equity plans.
“In addition to these sectoral targets, the Employment
Equity Plans also have to address the analysis, interpretation
and remediation of income differentials across occupational
levels and in terms of the vertical inequality or Gini Index of an
organisation,” he said.
Upon being introduced in parliament, the bill will undergo a
full public consultation process. RACA
RACA Journal I April 2020
7