Employers rallied to hire people with disabilities

The chairperson of the Commission for Employment Equity (CEE), Tabea Kabinde, has lamented the slow pace of transformation in the workplace for designated groups, especially for people with disabilities.

Kabinde was addressing the Employment Equity roadshow in Pretoria on Wednesday.

Conducted under the theme, ‘Real transformation makes business sense’, the Employment Equity roadshows by the Department of Employment and Labour, in collaboration with the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA), create awareness on the recently promulgated EE amendments, sector targets and regulations.

The workshops further aim to deal with the impact of EE in the labour market by sharing the results of the 23rd CEE Annual Report.

“Out of 27 532 reports received, covering a total of 7 215 960 employees, only 1.2% are persons with disabilities. We are now stretching it to only 2% as a proposed target. Please do not overlook people with disabilities,” Kabinde said.

The chairperson told the gathering that while there are employers who are transforming their workplaces in terms of hiring people with disabilities, very few go beyond the 1.2%. She said there must be a demonstrable commitment to employ those with disabilities.

Kabinde said anyone can have disabilities due to an accident or illness and “this does not mean the end”.

On the issue of sector targets, the CEE chairperson told the meeting that a lot of noise in the media is created by misunderstandings.

“When we start fighting, we forget that we are talking about the Economically Active Population (EAP). The EAP focuses only on people who are working, looking for work and are employable,” she said.

She told the workshop that it cannot be that a group with a small EAP continues to occupy top management level posts, whereas racial groups with a higher percentage of the EAP occupy a small fraction of top management posts.

Part of the session was also spent on a demonstration of the online EE system with the incorporated amendments to reporting on the system and how certificates of compliance will be generated.

There was also a presentation of the CCMA’s case law related to EE, professionally done by a Commissioner from the CCMA.

The national series workshops/roadshows started on 18 July and will conclude on 29 August 2023. The remaining August workshops are as follows:

Gauteng
• Johannesburg (2 August 2023)

Mpumalanga
• Witbank (Emalahleni) – (15 August 2023)
• Nelspruit (Mbombela) – (16 August 2023)

Western Cape
• George (15 August 2023)
• Cape Town (16 August 2023)

Eastern Cape
• Gqeberha (22 August 2023)
• East London (23 August 2023)
• Mthatha (24 August 2023)

Free State
• Welkom (22 August 2023)
• Bloemfontein (23 August 2023)

KwaZulu-Natal
• Durban (29 August 2023)

The EE workshops are targeted at employers or heads of organisations, academics, senior managers, consultative forum members, human resource practitioners, trade unions, employees and other interested stakeholders.