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SCEA pulls out of CASA to avoid betraying members by Dr Ivor Blumenthal, SCEA Facilitator The Surface Coatings Employer Association (SCEA) has withdrawn its membership from the newly-formed Construction Alliance of South Africa (CASA), which is managed by the Master Builders Association on-behalf of a multitude of associations in the construction sector.
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CEA’s membership of CASA has been very short-lived, but long enough to see that the level of strategic collusion between some CASA members has more to do with the exclusion of traditional players than what is right for the country. That collusion has quickly spilled over into like-minded government circles, in particular on matters of transformation, BBBEE targets and newly-formulated management targets on race and gender. Clearly, the position of elements within CASA is directed to turning the screws unfairly on companies in the construction sector which are finding compliance with the Construction Charter Council Scorecard targets impossible. Employment equity targets managed by the Department of Employment and Labour are also biased against companies which are committed to managed transformation with a view to retaining quality and inclusivity as two critical priorities. The SCEA’s primary objection to continuing as a member of CASA – and so become part of the establishment, which is taken into formal engagement with the Department of Employment and Labour – is that SCEA would be betraying the interests of SCEA and SAPMA Members in the process. In 2017, the Department of Labour adopted and gazetted Employment
Equity Targets, which had no foundation in empirical member-based research and were a thumb suck of a few pro-transformation advocates who were deployed into the sector to lie, disrupt and capture. Participating in well-orchestrated ‘sweetheart engagements’ were associations and federations, which themselves had been captured and overrun with people who again had no history in the construction sector and whose sole purpose was to sacrifice the foundation of our world-class sector. The reality is that those associations and federations, which were party to accepting the Transformation Targets adopted by the Departments of Trade and Industry and equally Labour, had little mandate from their actual feepaying members. Instead, together with State choreographers, a narrative of a baseline (that never existed infact), led to the adoption of targets which were at the time impossible for the majority of world-class companies to achieve. Questions that should be asked is why a handful of large companies went along with these changes as meekly as they did? What pressure was placed on them and what threats exerted to buy their silence? Did this have anything to do with the post-2010 Soccer World Cup investigations into collusion by the Competition Commission? The problem is that now, in 2021,
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the Department of Employment and Labour has signalled its intention to move to the next phase of its Strategic Plan, which is ‘punishment and enforcement’ designed to decimate existing players in the sector which have consistently struggled with the 2017 targets. The strategy is to finalise the establishment of a construction sector which is wholly represented by BBBEE Level 1 & 2 members of the Black Business Council for the Built Environment, to the exclusion of all other players. I say this because there are uncanny similarities between arguments made by some CASA members during the recent engagement process with the Department of Employment and Labour during the SCEA's last meeting with them. This was also reflected during internal discussions prior to the engagement, and how DE&L representatives articulated their dissatisfaction with the issues addressed by CASA during the engagement. I refer to a mail received directly from the CEO of the Black Business Council for the Built Environment which is accurate and highlights a well devised and orchestrated strategy with government which is now bearing-fruit: “The position of the BBCBE remains unchanged with regards to the CSC targets of 2017. The industry has had three years to achieve these targets.
