Department of Labour employment equity roadshows enter the Northern Cape Province targeting the towns of Upington and Kathu. The Department of Labour’s annual national Employment Equity (EE) roadshows intended to create awareness and compliance with the new Employment Equity legislation.
The Employment Equity roadshows each year bring together human resource executives and practitioners; assigned Senior EE Managers/Transformation Managers and EE forum members to highlight the importance of the implementation of the EE legislation in South Africa.
Presentations will be held on 25 September at Naba Lodge (Upington) and 26 September 2014 at the Namakwari Lodge (Kathu). Both the roadshows’ presentations will be held between 9h30-13h00 respectively.
The roadshows are held with the objective to: advocating critical areas in the Employment Equity Amendment Act of 2013, advocating the Amended Employment Equity Regulations of 2014; and the practical demonstration of the EE online reporting facility for the 2014 reporting period.
In terms of the EE Act - “All employers whether small or large are now compelled to report every year, failure to comply will result in penalties”. The newly amended Employment Equity Amendment Act, No 47 of 2013 and its Regulations took effect from 1 August 2014. The initial Employment Equity Act was passed in 1998, to deal with the painful historical past based on race exclusions. These exclusions permeated through the country’s labour market where job segregation was sanctioned to exclude black people, women and people with disabilities in order to deny them the opportunity to fully participate and contribute in the labour market.
The prominent feature of these amendments is the new innovation introduced to address discrimination in salaries. It is the concept of ‘equal pay for work of equal value’ to ensure that there is parity in remuneration of workers of the same employer doing work of equal value when all terms and conditions of employment are the same. Any differentiation in pay that cannot be justified becomes unfair discrimination.
Furthermore, a provision has been made for better dispute resolution mechanisms through the facilitation of access to justice through the Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) and the Labour Court on unfair discrimination cases.
The amendments also seek to strengthen the compliance mechanisms in the Act, including shortening the process for enforcing compliance by Labour inspectors.
Meanwhile, the EE reporting period/season has commenced on 1 September 2014 for both manual and online reporting. Manual reporting will close on 1 October 2014 and online on 15 January 2015.
Enquiries:
Kebalepile Khula
Cell: 083 405 0166
