{"id":13918,"date":"2014-05-15T09:28:45","date_gmt":"2014-05-15T09:28:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=13918"},"modified":"2014-05-15T09:28:45","modified_gmt":"2014-05-15T09:28:45","slug":"telkom-targets-whites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=13918","title":{"rendered":"Telkom targets whites"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Telkom<\/a>
Telkom headquarters in Pretoria, as seen from Church Square Photo: Wikipedia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Telkom plans to target white, male employees when making job cuts that may affect more than 2,600 managers at South Africa\u2019s largest fixed-line phone company, according to labor unions.<\/p>\n

The carrier will consider \u201cemployment equity\u201d when deciding who to dismiss, according to a document two labor unions said they received from Pretoria-based Telkom this week.<\/p>\n

Employment equity is a government policy seeking to boost black participation in the workforce regardless of demography or merit.<\/p>\n

South African companies have to comply with legislation seeking to address racial inequalities that stem from apartheid rule, which ended in 1994.<\/p>\n

White males account for almost 40 percent of the senior and middle management positions that Telkom wants to reduce, while less than 9 percent of South Africa\u2019s population is white.<\/p>\n

Solidarity, a union with close ties to the predominantly white Afrikaans community, said Telkom\u2019s cuts may disproportionately target white workers.<\/p>\n

Affirmative action refers to racial measures that encourage companies in South Africa to hire and promote more black staff and procure goods and services from black-owned companies, despite blacks being a majority in the country.<\/p>\n

The measures obviously discriminate against the small white minority.<\/p>\n

Companies aren\u2019t required to apply such policies when cutting jobs. Telkom said yesterday it intends to reduce its \u201cmanagement layer\u201d by about 25 percent.<\/p>\n

The operator, about 40 percent owned by the South African government, \u201cwill consider a number of criteria, one of which is our obligation to comply with the Employment Equity Act.\u201d<\/p>\n

The other criteria include qualifications, potential, length of service, and gender, according to a document that the unions, Solidarity and the South African Communications Union, said they received.<\/p>\n

At Telkom, white males account for 38 percent of senior management and 39 percent of middle management, according to its 2013 annual report.<\/p>\n

Source: Bloomberg News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Telkom plans to target white, male employees when making job cuts that may affect more than 2,600 managers at South Africa\u2019s largest fixed-line phone company, according to labor unions. The carrier will consider \u201cemployment equity\u201d when deciding who to dismiss, according to a document two labor unions said they received from Pretoria-based Telkom this week. … Continue reading “Telkom targets whites”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1007,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[356,2361,1033,2667,8946,716,2596],"class_list":["post-13918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-south-africa","tag-affirmative-action","tag-discrimination","tag-employment-equity","tag-merit","tag-racial-inequalities","tag-telkom","tag-white-minority"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/telkom_headquarters.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13918"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13919,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13918\/revisions\/13919"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}