A Cautionary Tale in Planning Race-Based Business Policies

An exam question was asked at the end of last year in a Logics course, with the caution that the question was compulsory. A failure to answer the question would result in failure of the candidate.

“A young Black man goes into a company’s office, clutching a Classified Ad from the ‘Jobs Vacant’ section of the local newspaper. “I want to apply for this job,” he says. “Let’s check your credentials before I tell you more about the job,” replies the man behind the desk. “I gained a B Com degree three years ago, but I haven’t been able to find work since I graduated, so I don’t have any experience.” The young man hands over letters from his teachers and lecturers stating their assessment of his capabilities and character. “That’s promising,” replies the man behind the desk. “We’re looking for a qualified person to do this job. It pays well, but we don’t do any work for the Government or the big companies that require that we comply with the BBEEE requirements. We would love to do some of that, but we don’t think it’s fair to our employees to subject them to arbitrary rules based on their race, so we limit our market to companies that think the way we do. We appoint people on merit, give them the training that they need to perform well, and then promote them according to their ability to do the work. We’re just an ordinary business that doesn’t apply any discriminatory rules based on race, gender or religion. All we’re looking for is someone who wants to build a long-term career on the basis of his or her ability.” The man behind the desk named a salary that was a little above the average for the qualifications required for the job. “Of course, in order to ensure that we keep the best people, we provide full training for the job as well as the next one up on the ladder, so that you can progress as quickly as your capabilities permit, and we’ll offer a participation in the shareholding of the company to people who have been with us for at least three years, and have proven their ability to perform in the jobs they hold by scoring above average on their annual performance appraisal. You can pay for your shareholding, if it’s offered, by deducting 1% of your salary for the purpose, until the agreed cost is paid. The likelihood is that the shares will earn you at least an additional fifty per cent of your salary once they’ve been paid. We don’t believe that anyone is entitled to demand a handout purely on the basis of their race, so your future will depend on you. Are you interested in the job?”

The applicant sat back in the chair and considered what he had been told. He needed the job, because the economy had been declining steadily since before he had commenced his studies, stifled by the economic policies imposed on the country by a Marxist-Leninist Government which appeared to have little understanding of proven economic theory, and he doubted that any of the many promises and job-creation initiatives by the Government would work any better in the future than they had done in the past twenty-three years.

Please respond to this situation as though you were the applicant by ticking one of the boxes below:

 

“Yes, please. I would like the job. I have always wanted to earn what I am worth, and I resent being treated as someone who needs special treatment. I believe that would degrade me personally as well as the knowledge I have worked so hard to obtain. You can count on me as a future shareholder.

 

No, thank you. I know that I do not have the skills, knowledge and capabilities of a White person, and I am not prepared to undertake any form of employment that does not recognise that my parents’ suffering under Apartheid entitles me to be paid for performing at a lower level than a White person with the same level of education. I believe that I am inferior, and I demand special rights to compensate for that.

Please amplify your choice in not more than 1 000 words below.”

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No, this did not happen, but it is a situation that comes up many times each day in South Africa.

The Government places much emphasis on the creation of special entitlements for Black persons, and on the creation of ‘Black entrepreneurs’, apparently believing that a job created by a Black entrepreneur has more value than that created by a White. It does not seem to understand that an employer seeking a new employee will take whichever candidate meets its requirements in terms of education, experience and skills, which implies that the major responsibility of the Government is the provision of an education and training that will ensure that all of the people in the system gain the qualifications to hold they jobs they aspire to. In none of the companies assisted by the Management Consultancy of which I am part was race ever a criterion, except where the employer was forced to accommodate a lower level of capability in order to meet the requirements of the Government’s BBEEE laws, and, in most cases, that resulted in a form of restructuring to ensure that the candidate it was forced to take was supported by other employees with more skill and experience. The Government fails to understand, or perhaps does not wish to understand, that the world of business is focused on profit and effectiveness in a world where both of these are becoming more critical each month. They want to employ people who will enable them to achieve these goals, and do not even notice the race of the person doing the job.

As in so many aspects of Government’s actions, it appears that the insistence on employers choosing the correct racial mix is doing much more to drag down the ability of companies to do the work needed for the economy, than it is doing to advance the interests of the Black population. The declining performance of the economy is stark evidence of that. In the interests of advancing its prospects to be re-elected, the ANC is creating racial division and strife, totally ignoring the fact that the Government is the Government of ALL the people of the country. One must ask why it is good to destroy the ability of White-owned and –managed businesses to succeed and to continue to offer jobs to all races, while providing huge incentives to Black-owned (and probably White-managed) businesses to replace them, (probably at a lower level of effectiveness for many years) introducing a large cost burden on Government and continuity-risk burden on employees (in acknowledgement of the universal fact that the highest fatality rate for business is experienced in the first three to seven year period).

How would you respond to the questions above, if you were in the position of the young Black job-seeker? Do you qualify as a racist, or as an efficient player in the economy?