BusinessLive reports that a labour think-tank at Wits University said on Tuesday that the Department of Labour was undermining the draft legislation on the national minimum wage (NMW) by ignoring instructions from the parliamentary portfolio committee.  

This would not be the first time the department has bungled the drafting of the critical legislation.  Earlier in 2018, Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant described the exclusion of agreements on the bill reached by organised labour, the government and business at Nedlac as an "erroneous oversight" by state lawyers.  The portfolio committee referred the bill to the department in April for corrections after public submissions.  However, experts at the Wits University National Minimum Wage Research Initiative said the department had not effected the changes, resulting instead in the dilution of the bill.  The weakened sections included the reinstatement of the role of sectoral determinations and an agreement to include a two-year deadline by which domestic and agricultural worker levels must be raised to the minimum wage level, the think-tank said.  But the department has described the concerns as "incorrect and misleading", without providing the basis thereof.  The portfolio committee is scheduled to interrogate each clause of the bill on Wednesday.

• Read this report by Theto Mahlakoana in full at BusinessLive

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