Pretoria – The Department of Labour will host its annual workshops and roadshows in all provinces to promote the implementation and compliance with the Employment Equity Act from 11 July to 8 September.
The department hosts workshops and roadshows in all the provinces annually to share key information and at the same time, provide a platform to stakeholders to engage on matters relating to employment equity.
To be held under the theme ‘Real transformation makes business sense’, the roadshows will share the most current information and help prepare employers to submit fully and accurately EE reports online to the Department for the 2017 reporting period. They are formulated to create awareness on compliance with the Employment Equity Act.
This year’s workshops will focus on the following:
- publicise the Amended Code of Good Practice on the Preparation and Implementation of the EE plans;
- encourage employers to submit EE reports online;
- publicise the 17th cee annual report and the 2016 EE public register and
- present current CCMA cases on employment equity act.
At the recent launch of the 17th CEE Annual Report, Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant announced that government is considering amending sections of the EE Act in order to promulgate Section 53 and to strengthen the compliance provisions of the Act.
The 17th Commission for Employment Equity Report showed that the representation of the white group at Top Management Level was 68.9%, which is more than six times their Economic Active Population (EAP).
The situation was also the case with the Indian group at 8.6%, as they have a representation of three times more than their EAP.
The opposite is true for the African group at 14.3% and coloured group at 4.7% - as they are underrepresented in relation to their EAP.
“This skewed demographic picture is also the same at senior management, skilled technical, and professional level,” the department said in a statement.
Minister Oliphant called on workers to be vigilant by ensuring that they truly scrutinise the equity plans and reports before submitting to the department.
Due to the high demand for the workshops, the department will host a few additional workshops in some of the key metropolitan areas this year.
This year’s workshops will be held as follows:
- Northern Cape, Kimberley (11 July)
- North West, Rustenburg (13 July)
- Mpumalanga, Witbank (17 July)
- Limpopo, Thohoyandou (18 July) and Polokwane (19 July)
- Free State, Bloemfontein (24 July)
- KwaZulu-Natal, Richards Bay (01 August) and Durban (02 August)
- Eastern Cape, East London (15 August) and Port Elizabeth (16 August)
- Western Cape, George (22 August) and Cape Town (24 August) and
- Gauteng, Pretoria (5 September), Ekurhuleni (6 September), Vaal (7 September) and Ekurhuleni (8 September).
For the third year running, the Department of Labour will also share the stage with the Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) in order to share information on dispute resolution and case law.
The target audience for the workshops during the roadshows includes: human resources executives and practitioners, EE Forum members, assigned senior EE managers/transformation managers, academics and trade unions.
All the EE national workshops are scheduled to start at 08:30 and ends at 14:00 at venues to be confirmed for each province.
The season for reporting for manual and online reporting, starts on 1 September 2017. – SAnews.gov.za
