This news aggregator site highlights South African labour news from a wide range of internet and print sources. Each posting has a synopsis of the source article, together with a link or reference to the original. Postings cover the range of labour related matters from industrial relations to generalist human resources.
City Press reports that government is finalising legislation aimed at highlighting the huge gap in what companies’ highest paid bosses and the lowest paid employees earn.
Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Ebrahim Patel said during his budget speech last week that a new law stipulating that companies have to disclose the gap in remuneration “would be finalised within 60 days”. It will require disclosure of wage differentials in companies, stronger governance on excessive director pay, and enhanced transparency on ownership and financial records. An amendment to company law “is required to tackle the gross injustice of excessive pay,” Patel said. But, Madelein Burger of law firm Webber Wentzel said that, between the 2019 version, last month’s version and an amendment to the latter, it was uncertain which “new law” the minister had been referring to. The Companies Amendment Bill of 2018 was published in the Government Gazette in September 2018 for comment. Since then, several unofficial versions of the bill have been distributed for discussion, the latest of which was last month. Burger noted that this year’s unofficial version of the bill provided for the gap in pay between high- and low-paid employees to be made public, as well as the gap between the average of 5% of the highest-paid employees versus the average of 5% of the lowest paid. That version does not indicate what would count as unacceptable. It is also uncertain what Patel means by “finalise”. According to the minister, the legal provisions will not prescribe salaries. According to Burger, the unofficial version of this year does not prescribe any remedies or steps regarding the payment gaps, but the remuneration policy must be approved every three years.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Riana de Lange at City Press
- Read too, Patel’s plan to address the inequity of executive pay, at Moneyweb
- And also, Law on wage disclosure is a step towards greater equality (editorial), at BusinessLive
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page