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Trade union Solidarity today announced that it is taking on another 34 affirmative action court cases against the state and parastatals. At the same time Solidarity announced that it has launched a major campaign to help build a R10 million legal fund to help finance those court cases.

This announcement comes on the eve of Solidarity’s affirmative action court case on behalf of Lt-Col Renate Barnard against the South African Police Service (SAPS), which will be heard tomorrow (20 March 2014) in the Constitutional Court. Barnard has been fighting for justice for the past nine years and it is expected that this court case will change the affirmative action landscape forever.

‘The Barnard case is a landmark event in Solidarity’s struggle for equality, fairness and dignity in the workplace, Dirk Hermann, Solidarity’s Executive Officer said. ‘The state sets the pace in South Africa. If the state implements an unlawful practice, the private sector will follow suit, and soon it will be applied so widely that the unlawful practice becomes lawful. Thus, justice follows practice.

Therefore, we cannot simply let the state’s unfair ideology of representivity be. In a constitutional democracy it is the duty of civil society to act as a watchdog of the constitutional state. Taking action against a state which is acting outside the legal framework and contrary to the constitutional democracy is nothing but being patriotic.’

Solidarity’s 34 cases are in various stages of litigation and focus on various elements of the state’s ideology of representivity and include the role of service delivery; the efficient functioning of the civil service; the exclusion of race groups from job advertisements; the use of racial quotas; observance of the regional demographics; and minorities’ right to dignity and equality.

Solidarity has already triumphed three times over the affirmative action strategy of the Department of Correctional Services, and has triumphed numerous times over the SAPS. The trade union also won in the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein on behalf of Renate Barnard. Solidarity has also been successful against Denel, the Tshwane Municipality and the South African Blood Service.

Apart from those cases, Solidarity is conducting another eight cases against the SAPS; another case against the DCS, as well as cases against South African Airways and the airline’s technical services division, the Tshwane Municipality and the Department of Justice, and several cases against employers in the private sector. Solidarity is also involved in litigation asking that the SAPS’s and the DCS’s affirmative action plans be declared invalid.

‘Solidarity has decided to establish a R10 million legal fund to finance our campaign for equality, fairness and dignity in the workplace. Unfortunately, we are litigating against a state which has deep tax pockets. The state is litigating against us using our own tax money. We are expecting that thousands of South Africans would contribute to the legal fund, be it in the form of smaller or larger contributions.

As far as our knowledge goes this legal action is the largest civil legal action yet in South Africa. Solidarity’s aim is to establish a South Africa in which all will be free and equal before the law and in which all will be treated fairly and with dignity.