Employment equity practices at eThekwini Municipality.
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Date
2014
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Abstract
This research focused on the Employment Equity Act in order to determine whether the
eThekwini Municipality was achieving the Employment Equity Targets. This was researched
through a data mining process. Employment Equity is an integral part of workplace
transformation in the post-apartheid era. The democratic government introduced the
Employment Equity Act No. 55 of 1998 as a vehicle to drive transformation in a highly
divided South African workforce market. The common method of implementing the
employment equity has been affirmative action policies. The success of the implementation
of the employment equity depends upon the commitment by government departments of
Labour and Justice, all designated employers, employees, trade unions, shareholders and
customers. The Employment Equity Act mandate designated employers to prepare and
implement the Employment Equity Plan. This study focused on the implementation of
Employment Equity at eThekwini Municipality. The research involved the detailed analysis
of eThekwini Municipality Employment Equity Plan, Affirmative Action policies, annual
numeric targets, and progress reports submitted to which was qualitative in nature. The
research process involved mining official records to obtain the necessary data. The findings
revealed that the eThekwini municipality was compliant with the Act in terms of developing
an Employment Equity Plan and implementing Affirmative Action policies. It was noted that
the municipality was making steady progress towards equity. The pace of transformation was
not convincing and it was skewed in favour of male employees. The woman and people with
disability were not sufficiently represented in all job levels of the organisation. The also study
find that racial distribution was not representative of the eThekwini area demographics, there
was an influx of Black employees at the low job levels which somehow increased the
percentage of the overall Black employees in the Municipality.
The Municipality seems to have numerous programmes in place such as Talent Management
and policies such as disability policy that seek to redress past-imbalances. The effects of such
initiatives are yet to produce noticeable and meaningful results. The findings of the study
conducted at eThekwini are not very different to the general findings by the 2012 / 2013
Commission for Employment Equity. Indeed there is a great need for eThekwini municipality
not only to comply with the Act administratively but also to meet its annual numeric targets.
This research has yielded recommendations to address the municipality’s shortfalls.
Description
MBA University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 2014.
Keywords
South Africa.--Employment Equity Act, 1998., eThekwini Municipality., Employee rights--South Africa--eThekwini Municipality., Affirmative action programs--South Africa--eThekwini Municipality., Theses--Business administration.