Soath Africa's Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BEEE)

Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) aims to ensure that the economy is structured
transformed to enable the meaningful participation of the majority of its citizens and to further create capicity
within the broader economic landscape at all levels through skills development, employment equity,
economic development, preferential procurement, enterprise development, especially small and medium
Blqyrikes, promoting the entry of black entrepreneurs into the mainstream of economic activity, and theament
of co-operatives (The Economic Development Department, 2015),
 Soath Africa's Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BEEE)

Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) aims to ensure that the economy is
structured transformed to enable the meaningful participation of the majority of its citizens and to
further create capicity within the broader economic landscape at all levels.

Black economic empowerment is an important policy instrument aimed at broadening the base of
the country and through this, at stimulating further economic growth and erecting
employment B.BBEE needs to be implemented in an effective and sustainable manner in order to
unleash and harness the full potential of black people and to foster the objectives of a pro0-
employment developmental growth path.
 The Government is seeking to achieve B-BBEE by:

• Increasing the number of PDCs who manage, own and control businesses.

• Facilitating the owneship and management of such businesses by communities, workers and
othercollective enterprises.
• Boosting human resource and skill development.

• Achieving equitable representation in all categories and levels of the workforce.

• Promoting preferential procurement which would involve the purchase of goods and services with
astrong B-BBEE score.

• Encouraging investment in enterprises that are PDC-owned or managed.

Case Study 8: Black economic empowerment has not worked well. Nor will it end
soon.

The controversy is one of many to dog the Africa National Congress (ANC) policy
of 'black economic empowerment (BEE). When apartheid ended in 1994, the ANC
promised to make black South Africans richer. To this end, it has promoted the
transfer of stakes in white-owned businesses to a new class of black investors.
Change at the top, it was claimed, would foster change further down by removing
blockages to the hiring and promotion of blacks.
 Few black had been able to accumulate capital under apartheid, so stake were
thypically sold at adiscount and finance by loans, often from the companies
themselves, any of which judged it wise to wooinfluencial black shareholders.

One of the accelerators is the award of licences in mining, telecoms and other
regulated sectors. If a firm is not sufficiently empowered ic., if too few of its
shares and jobs are in black hands-it will not win retain an operating licence.
The Employment Equity Act of 1998 obliges biggish firms to try to make their workforces racially
'representative'. Those that employ more than 50 people are required to report at last every other
year on their progress towards making their staff 75% black. 10% coloured (mixed race), 3%
indian, and s0 on, at every level from shop floor to boardroom. Failure to show 'reasonable` efforts
at compliance
result in fines of up to 900,000 rand ($97,000).

• Not going anywhere

The lot of poorer blacks, however, has not improved much. Many are frozen out of the
workplace altogether.The unemployment rate among blacks is 28.5%, compared with 5.6%
for whites. If those who want work but have given up looking for it are included, the jobless
rate is a whopping 41.6% for blacks compared with 7.59%for whites.
 Pitifully few black South Africans have grown rich by creating entirely new
businesses, perhaps because itso much casier to make money by acquiring stakes in
existing firns. The collapse in stock prices in 2008 many would-be tycoons with
assets that were worth less than the loans taken out to buy then

A costly burcaucracyas grown up to enforce racial targets, which even black-owned

firms have to contend with. Posts are left vacant for want of uqualified black staff.
Some businesses re-employ white professionals as freelance consultants to plug skills
shortages without falling foul of the law.
 The binding constraint on greater black participation in the economy is
cducation, says Lucy Holborm from the South African Institute of Race
Relations, a think-tank that has called for BEE to be scrapped. The
proportions of professionals who are black is 36%, fairly close to the share
of degrees held by blacks, which is around 40% But that falls short of the
75% share of the total workforce who are black. It is no good sctting quotas
if &are not the skilled workers to fill them, says Ms.Holborn.
 Overcoming racial discrimination at work

Nicholson (2012) states that although a good portion of people do not want to admit it,
racism and discriminationstill take place today. In fact, they are still pretty big issues.
Societies have made leaps and bounds since theschool of thought from the past, but there
is still a long way to go. One of the areas where people are strugglingwith racism is in the
workplace. This is unfortunate since this is where most ofus spend the majority of our
day.When someone faces racism in the workplace, it can really start to take a toll on their
work, their health and theiroverall attitude.
Be Part of the Solution
As a member of the office and a co-worker, one has a good deal of power. If an employee is
not the one dealing with racist issues first-hand, then he should make sure that he is doing
what he can to combat it. If there someone in office that makes racist jokes and claims they
are “light-hearth” and have no malicious intent, one should not laugh.

Discuss the issue first

If somebody experiences racism in the workplace, there is a need to talk to the offenders
them first. As stated aware of the fact that they are hurting the person. By addressing the
issue earlier, trustworthy should tell person that what they are saying is wrong and that it is
actually bothering you. By saying nothing, a way, one encourages a person to continue.
 Refer to the boss/manager supervisor

addressing the issue does not seem to work and the righteous employee has made a true
attempt to tell this n how they are offending him, then it is time to take action. No one
should have to decal with racism in the workplace the wrongful person needs to be told
that what he is doing is absolutely wrong and perhaps illegal.

Affirmative action

The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) forwards a charter to combat

racism at work CUPE (2015)inlsins that it must continue to build and maintain
solidarity with workers in developing countries to fight theoporations and
international financial institutions that exploit workers.
 A chapter to develop anti-racism education for member, leader and staff.

We must continue to develop courses to help all members understand the systemic
and class-based nature of racism.

We must continue to integrate an anti-racism component into all of our campaigns and our
eduprogrammes into our training programmes for shop stewards, and all our leadership
development courses eexample.

We must take every opportunity to build solidarity and sensitise members about the nature,
prevaleand destructive effects of racism in the workplace.

The union must also develop anti-racism training and materials for leadership and
staff. This anti-racism trainineshould include how to respond quickly and effectively to
complaints .
 Matsalove!
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