Press Statement dated 29 January 2019
The National Minimum Wage has been in effect for less than a month and more than 350 wage disputes have already been referred to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA).
Adv Cameron Morajane, Director of the CCMA, warned South Africa’s three Trade Union Federations who attended the annual Nedlac Organised Labour School in Pretoria that he expects this figure to have doubled by the end of the month.
“So far this year, 30% of the cases referred to the CCMA is in relation to the non-compliance of the minimum wage.”
Morajane asked Organised Labour to support him in his advocacy that the minimum wage must be made immune against reviews and appeals as it would only worsen the backlog of the Labour Court in Johannesburg.
“A minimum wage award issued by the CCMA must not be subjected to review by a court. If it is, the cases will run for years. Workers will die waiting for their money. The time that it takes for existing orders to be executed is part of the social justice problem we are faced with.
“Currently there is a two-year waiting period in the Labour Court for a normal review. If a matter is set down today, it will only be heard in 2021. With the implementation of the minimum wage on 1 January 2019 the numbers will build up even more,” he said.
According to Morajane the Labour Court does not have enough judges or courts to handle the increasing work load. “The whole idea of implementing a minimum wage will cause frustration.”
Steve Harris, General Secretary of the United National Transport Union (UNTU), says this means that workers will have to wait longer for their disputes to be heard at the CCMA and even longer for reviews and appeals to be handled by the Labour Court.
Harris agreed with Morajane that many cases get lost between the CCMA and the Labour Court because workers give up or can’t afford to continue to fight the employer.
UNTU attended the school as part of the delegation of the Federation of Trade Unions of South Africa (FEDUSA).
Morajane predicts that there will be employers who deliberately refuses to pay the minimum wage so that they can dispute the National Minimum Wage Bill in court. According to him employers would want to question who has the duty to pay the minimum wage.
“The minimum wage set a minimum standard of what workers should be paid to eradicate poverty and to enhance economic development in the country. By implementing the wage, South Africa is executing a convention of the International Labour Organisation (ILO),” said Morajane.
Issued on behalf of United National Transport Union (UNTU) by Sonja Carstens, Media and Liaison Officer