Equal employment opportunities: a conceptual puzzle

Abstract

Various concepts are used in official and academic discourses on affirmative action in general and the transformation of the South African public service in particular. If what is meant by the different words is not clear, people will not be able to understand each other clearly and assess the progress being made with the various interventions.The purpose of this article, therefore, is to produce a conceptual framework that will untangle the major transfor- mation-related concepts in the public service. It is shown in this article that equality and fundamental equal employment opportunities seem to be the end of all the transformation-related interventions. Four criteria, prerequi- sites or standards (i.e., equity, justice, merit and representativeness) have been identified to assess all human resource-related interventions. Affirma- tive action has been shown to be a means to achieve equality and equal employment in the public service. Affirmative action seems to aim, legally, at the enhancement of the `designated groups'. Although the designated groups are defined as blacks, women and disabled, it is argued that not all members of the three designated groups will be people who are historically disadvantaged persons.The article comes to the conclusion that it may be possible to have true equality and fundamental equal employment oppor- tunities based on equity, justice andmerit, without having a staff compo- nent representing hundred per cent of the country's population composi- tion. At the same time, itmay be possible to have representativeness,with- out having an equitable, just and merit-based staff component and without real equality.