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The Citizen reports that not everybody is happy with the new National Minimum Wage (NMW) rate that Department of Employment and Labour (DEL) Minister Thulas Nxesi announced on Friday.
The NMW for a general worker will be increased from R25.42 to R27.58 per hour from 1 March. Noting that Nxesi had acted on the recommendation of the National Minimum Wage Commission in increasing the NMW by 8.5% (inflation plus 3%) Gerhard Papenfus, CEO of the National Employers Association of SA (Neasa), commented: “The commission ignored the input of numerous business institutions and trade unions who warned of the dire consequences of implementing further increases, the calls for the scrapping of the national minimum wage and simply proceeded with recommending the implementation of its own original proposals.” He added that the commission also lost sight of the fact that a job, even a low-paying job, “is better than any social relief government has to offer and; being unemployed, no matter from which angle it is viewed, is a terrible form of abuse to subject any individual to.” Farmers are reportedly also unhappy with new NMW. Francois Wilken of Free State Agriculture said the 8.5% increase in the NMW was “completely out of touch with the economic realities that business experience and shows the complete lack of understanding of the economic conditions in the country.” On the other hand, labour federation Cosatu applauded the announcement of the increase of 8.5% as that had been Cosatu’s proposal.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Ina Opperman at The Citizen
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page