Minimum wage ‘just the beginning’

Foundation stage, says Ramaphosa

PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa used his Freedom Day speech to defend the proposed national minimum wage that came under fire from the SA Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) this week.

Addressing a packed Dr Rantlai Petrus Molemela Stadium in Mangaung, Bloemfontein, yesterday, Ramaphosa said some people have argued that the starting national minimum wage of R20 an hour is not a living wage and will not end income inequality.

“They are correct. But what the national minimum wage does provide is a firm and unassailable foundation – which is agreed to by all social partners – from which to advance the struggle for a living wage,” Ramaphosa said.

He said the initiative’s critics should remember that the introduction of the national minimum wage would increase the income of over six million working South Africans.

“A wage increase of that size and that extent is unprecedented in our history, and we must celebrate it,” Ramaphosa said.

He likened the national minimum wage to a great hill that has been climbed but warned South Africans to dare not linger because there are still many more hills to climb.

Thousands of Saftu members marched in the country’s major cities on Wednesday to demonstrate the federation’s opposition to the national minimum wage and legislation that will force workers to hold votes on whether or not to strike.

Saftu and its affiliates argue that workers cannot live on R20 an hour and are demanding the R12 500 a month national minimum wage Marikana mineworkers were fighting for when some were killed in August 2012.

But Ramaphosa said the national minimum wage was being introduced for the first time in the country’s history, fulfilling a demand made at the Congress of the People in Kliptown, Soweto, in 1955.

“We are committed to accelerating the redistribution of land, both in urban and rural areas, to ensure that poor South Africans are able to own land and have the means to work it,” he said.

Ramaphosa said among the measures to be used to accelerate redistribution is that of expropriation without compen- sation where it is necessary and justified.

At its national conference in Nasrec, Joburg, in December, the ANC resolved to expropriate land without compensation and later supported an EFF motion in Parliament.

“We call on all South Africans to be part of the broad process of consultation on how we should implement this decision in a way that makes redistribution meaningful and which contributes to a stronger economy, greater agricultural production and improved food security,” he added.

However, Ramaphosa promised that land expropriation without compensation is a measure that aims to extend property rights to all South Africans.

He used his speech to tell South Africans that their duty as custodians of the country’s democracy is to direct all resources to conquer poverty, joblessness, racial hatred, violence and lawlessness, illiteracy and idleness; and to place the nation on a path of growth and development.

Arts and Culture Minister Nathi Mthethwa, Free State Premier Sisi Ntombela and Mangaung mayor Olly Mlamleli shared the stage with Ramaphosa.

Ntombela and Mlamleli were booed and were drowned in a chorus of Struggle songs after Ramaphosa finished his speech.

‘We are

of land’