GroundUp writes that Pinky Mashilane, founder of United Domestic Workers of SA, points out that domestic workers buy in the same shops and pay the same transport costs, “so we must be treated like all workers and get the same minimum wage."  

Mashilane, who has worked as a domestic worker for over 30 years, is currently involved in the One Wage Campaign — a coalition of unions and civil society organisations fighting for all workers to receive an equal minimum wage.  The campaign was launched in August 2019, eight months after the National Minimum Wage Act was implemented.  The Act has been criticised by One Wage Campaign for setting the minimum wage lower than R20 for some workers.  Domestic workers are entitled to R15 an hour, while farmworkers are entitled to R18 an hour and Expanded Public Works Programme workers are entitled to only R11 an hour.  According to Mashilane, the domestic worker wage is "not a living wage", but some domestic workers earn even less.  "And now they want to exclude us from the minimum wage."  In November 2019, the campaign submitted a legal and economic argument to the National Minimum Wage Commission, which oversees the minimum wage, arguing that all workers must be recognised as equal under the law and ultimately, the minimum wage must be raised to a living wage.  Chief Director of Labour at the Employment and Labour Department, Thembinkosi Mkalipi, said the commission had two years to complete its work on equalising the minimum wage, so the final report would be at the end of 2020.  "The Act does not guarantee that minimum wages will be equalised.  This will depend on the results of the research on whether there have been job losses as a result of the introduction of the minimum wage or not," Mkalipi indicated.

• Read the full original of the GroundUp report in the above regard by Zoë Postman at News24

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