The challenge came as the case in the Labout Court hots up while Solidarity is supporting a group of white and coloured Western
Cape correctional services department (DCS) employees who claim they have been sidelined for promotion by affirmative action policies.
Solidarity says in a statement: “The Congress of SA Trade Unions is an important role-player in the Western Cape and its viewpoint must be heard by the court.”
Solidarity deputy general secretary Dirk Hermann says Cosatu’s stance that national racial demographics could not be applied in the Western Cape contradicted that of the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru), a Cosatu affiliate. Popcru said it supported the DCS’s policy.
Hermann says if Solidarity and Cosatu agreed in court that the government’s approach to affirmative action (that national racial demographics had to be reflected in every workplace, even on provincial and regional levels) it would send a strong message to government.
Solidarity is figting ten cases where candidates were recommended after interviews but due to the department’s affirmative action
Policies were never appointed. In stead black candidates who had come second or even third in the interview process were offered the jobs.
Solidarity says coloured and white DCS workers has no chance of promotion in the Western Cape if national race ratios are made compulsory in the province. This, they say, is unfair, irrational and unlawful.
