She said the Bill of Rights spoke against inequality and discrimination based on race, colour and gender.
Oliphant said her department was in the process of publishing amendments to the Employment Equity Act to enforce compliance.
Oliphant was speaking at a media briefing held ahead of the Commission for Employment Equity Indaba at Saint George Hotel in Irene, Pretoria, this morning.

The indaba – which included panelists from unions, businesses, the community, South African Human Rights Commission, Public Service Commission and the Commission on Gender Equity – discussed the successes and failures of the Employment Equity Act and made resolutions on the way forward.

Oliphant was given the 18th Commission for Employment Equity report by its chairperson Tabea Kabinde. The report painted a bleak picture of transformation in the country 20 years since the promulgation of the act.
At the Indaba, unions called for the banning of employers who don’t comply with Employment Equity while others called for more stringent measures to deal with non-complying employers.

Kabinde said, as part of dealing with lack of compliance, government had to promulgate the Employment Equity Act, including section 53, to ensure that an employment equity certificate of compliance is a condition or prerequisite for state contracts.
Currently, designated employers – those who employed 50 or more workers and made a specific turnover depending on their industry – were requested to comply or be fined if they had failed to do so.
Kabinde said the amendments would have to impose employment equity sector targets because self-imposed targets were not working.
She said the process of reporting employment equity figures was not thoroughly done and did not include voices from employees resulting in skewed one-sided reports.

The country needed to debate race, gender and stereotypes relating to these issues in the workplace, Kabinde said.
She said workplaces were a representation of where the country was in dealing with these issues.
Some of the glaring issues raised in the report include a lack of employment equity compliance, with the majority being companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, whites still dominating top positions, Africans (blacks) not being promoted to higher positions while constantly provided training, and the increasing employment of foreigners.
According to reported submissions made by employers, 27 163 submissions were made in 2017 compared to 26 255 in 2016.
A total of 95% of the 2017 reports submitted were made by the private sector covering 5.3 million employees.

Source: City Press