The Employment Equity Changes ... Do they apply to you?

(Note: What follows is of necessity only a brief summary of a few highlighted amendments to a complicated piece of legislation – take advice on your specific circumstances)
 
All employers and employees need to take account of the recent amendments to the Employment Equity Act.
 
What parts of the Act apply to you?

1. The “Prohibition of Unfair Discrimination” provisions apply to all employers and employees.
2. However the “Affirmative Action” provisions apply only to “designated” employers and to employees from “designated” groups (broadly, SA citizens who are black, female or disabled).

Affirmative Action: Are you a “designated” employer?
 
The requirements to prepare employment equity plans and to implement specified affirmative action measures will (with a few specific exceptions) only apply to you if you either –

• Employ 50 or more employees, or
• Have an annual turnover of or above the thresholds set out in the table below (tripled per the new amendments) –

What is “Unfair Discrimination”?
 
On the other hand, all employers are bound by prohibitions against any form of “unfair discrimination” i.e. discrimination based directly or indirectly on any one of the generally prohibited grounds of “race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, family responsibility, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, HIV status, conscience, belief, political opinion, culture, language, birth or [this last bit is new] any other arbitrary ground”.
 
The new rules on equal work, equal pay
 
An employer is now prohibited from differentiating between employees in regard to “terms and conditions of employment” (which would include remuneration, working conditions etc) in circumstances where –
The employees (the comparison extends only to employees of the same employer) perform “the same or substantially the same work or work of equal value”, and

• The differentiation is based on any of the generally prohibited grounds listed above.
• Beware the increased penalties

Contraventions of the Act carry greatly increased penalties, with first offenders risking a fine of the greater of R1,5m (tripled from the former maximum of R500,000) or 2% of turnover.

Bisset Boehmke McBlain Attorneys

15 September 2014