Now that they had been classified coloured, Chinese employers had no
excuse to mistreat their workers or pretend to labour inspectors that
they could not speak a South African language, Labour Minister
Membathisi Mdladlana said on Tuesday.
"They can speak Chinese of course in their homes; I have absolutely
no difficulty with that. But when we visit them, they must also
remember that they are now coloureds," he told a media briefing in Cape
Town.
"What I know is that coloureds don't speak Chinese."
Mdladlana said the Chinese might regret having gone to court.
The Pretoria High Court last week ruled that Chinese South Africans
should be included in the definition of "black people" in laws,
including black economic empowerment legislation, designed to benefit
previously disadvantaged groups.
The minister was the first respondent in the application, brought by
the Chinese Association of SA, but did not oppose it.
"I hope that they would... make sure that they would implement and
comply with the Labour Relations Act, and the Basic Conditions of
Employment Act, much, much better now that they have decided to
classify themselves as coloureds as in the past," he said on Tuesday.
One would not expect a coloured person to ill-treat other coloureds,
or black people to ill-treat blacks.
Responding to a prompt from a journalist, he said: "They might
regret that, having gone to court, at some stage... They might regret
having gone to court. Sometimes it's better that it's not clarified
than it is clarified."
He said he believed the Chinese who brought the application were
targeting the benefits of black economic empowerment.
"That's why other people are having fears, because the fear is that
they are business entrepreneurs. I hear people for instance saying, we
are going to be flooded by everything from China.
"We don't know whether that's one of their objectives, that they
flood us and then we don't challenge them because they are coloureds,
so what the hell, who do you think you are to challenge me, because I'm
a coloured.
"So I suspect that on the BEE front, there could be some serious
challenges there.
"On the labour market, I don't think they have given it careful
thought, because there they are going to have some serious difficulties
in relation to the way they are treating the workers in the workplaces.
"Because in some workplaces, that we have visited together with some
of the inspectors, they even refuse to speak English.
"They say, we can't speak English. Chinese pretend to be dumb when
they are not. We know they are not. Chinese are very clever people."
He said the same approach applied to black entrepreneurs who had in
the past asked him for a different labour regime for black employers.
That would be unconstitutional, because there was only one Labour
Relations Act for everyone, including Chinese.
"And therefore if they are coloureds, they can't now say 'I can't
speak the South African languages'. So they have to attempt to learn 11
official languages, or at least a couple of them in order to be able to
communicate with us..."
Mdladlana said 90 percent of the Chinese factories inspected by his
department had been found "wanting".
In the past, one factory owner from Botshabelo had moved his
operation to Lesotho rather than comply with South African labour law.
There was also the case of the Newcastle factory owner who locked his
workers in at night, resulting in the death of the baby of a woman
forced to give birth there.
He said he did not know whether the businesspeople in those cases
were South African nationals.
"To us it's irrelevant. An employer is an employer. Our job is to
inspect whether you are complying."
However the Inkatha Freedom Party had written to him, indicating
that those people had been in South Africa for many years.
"One would assume out of that they are more or less the same
group... One would assume those are South African Chinese people. I put
it in inverted commas because you are never sure. There are people with
double citizenship."
Mdladlana said it had been a wise decision of the judge to merely
say that the Chinese were coloureds, rather than try to create a
special category for them in law, which would have led to
complications.
"I suppose if I stand up now and say I want to be classified as
pink, so maybe a court will agree that you are pink, even if you are
not pink."