New law needed for minimum wage
• Researchers not in favour of existing legislative framework
Government will have to draft new legislation to ensure that the national minimum wage is implemented effectively. /
The government will have to draft new legislation to ensure that the national minimum wage is effectively implemented, researchers argue in a new report published on Thursday.
The report, compiled by the University of Cape Town's labour and enterprise policy research group, explored three options for introducing the national minimum wage into existing legislative framework.
National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) members have been discussing the minimum wage for the past 18 months under the guidance of Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa.
The national minimum wage is expected to uplift more than 5-million workers who earn below the R3,500 monthly threshold. It will be implemented from May 2018.
Sectoral determinations and the Basic Conditions of Employment Act currently govern working conditions and the regulation of wages.
The researchers examined a dedicated statute for the national minimum wage.
The Basic Conditions of Employment Act “would continue to provide a floor for all other employment conditions and mechanisms for enforcement”, they said.
But a new wage commission would have to be established to deal with the setting of wages and conditions of employment in all sectors and to review the national minimum wage.
The researchers argued that the minister of labour had “significant” powers over sectoral determinations, yet the national minimum wage had wider implications than any sectoral determination or bargaining council agreement.
It would have implications for macroeconomic policy, industrial policy and agricultural policy among others, they said.
The process to review sectoral determinations had limited input from social partners, was informed by little research and led to a decision by a single government minister.
“We believe it will be a mistake to locate the national minimum wage in a flawed and weakly capacitated procedure that is buried inside the Department of Labour,” the researchers argued.
Labour lawyer Michael Bagraim said he would like to see separate legislation to handle different sectors.
“It becomes manageable for the ministry of labour and it will become at least able to implement. To have a blanket minimum wage attached to the Basic Conditions of Employment Act will become impossible to administer. No one will adhere to it. We’ve got a very small inspectorate, a very small budget,” he said.
The idea of introducing the national minimum wage in its own statute had been agreed by Nedlac parties, Shane Godfrey, a co-author of the report said.
Nedlac CEO Madoda Vilakazi could not be reached for comment on the report. The deadline for agreement to be reached on the report is September.