BL Premium reports that activist group Just Share has dismissed Woolworths’ new staff healthcare benefits as insufficient, saying the initiative, while important, does not make employee pay fair or reasonable.
This criticism reignites scrutiny over whether retailers are doing enough to close the gap between top executives and frontline workers. The retailer recently rolled out a first-of-its-kind employee benefits package that gives more than 24,000 frontline workers access to private healthcare. The company said the new benefits reflected its commitment to employee wellbeing and were part of a broader “Just Life” initiative, which also includes its R120m “Just Wage” programme to raise minimum salaries. The company pays a minimum hourly rate of R45, which it says is 56% above the national minimum wage. But Just Share, which last year revealed Woolworths had the highest CEO-to-worker pay gap in the retail sector, said the core issue of extreme wage inequality remained unaddressed.
“The Just Wage initiative is commendable and Woolworth’s pays its employees more than some of its competitors. But the question to ask is whether the minimum wage that Woolworths’ pays its staff is sufficient to allow them to afford a decent standard of living, including schooling, transport, food, utilities etc,” Just Share stated. In its 2024 analysis, Just Share found that Woolworths’ CEO earned 1,308 times more than the company’s lowest-paid worker. Woolworths is not alone. Just Share found that, on average, CEOs in the retail and wholesale sector earned 597 times more than the lowest-paid workers.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Nompilo Goba at BusinessLive (subscriber access only)
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