Revising the Minimum Wage requires a new approach

LABOUR and Social Security Minister Brenda Tambatamba announced that the proposed changes to the minimum wage are in the final consultative stage (Millennium TV, February 25 2023).

The minimum wage covers the most vulnerable Zambian workers including the domestics, general workers and shop keepers. The minimum wage was last revised in July 2012. The upward adjustment ranges from the lowest 31 to the highest 36 percent nominal wage increase.

When the adjustment proposals were announced at the end of 2022, there was a public backlash denouncing the proposals as mere mockery in light of the cost of living.

The uproar forced me to do some basic research and found that the confusion was due to lack of a wage policy. If we had one, it will cover three planks, the minimum wage, fair wage and a living wage.

The minimum wage does not deal with the cost of living that is the role of the living wage. The minimum wage is simply a guarantee of an income for a worker so that s/ he is not regarded as a slave. Otherwise without a payment in whatever form for his or her labour, then he is a slave.

My main concern is with the consultation process. This is the Industrial Relations model which is a colonial legacy of the British government. The British Industrial Relations system has since dropped this lengthy stakeholder consultative process when dealing with the minimum wage. It is now indexed to inflation.

Our consultation process is bureaucratic and time consuming. As stakeholders are actively engaged in consultation and dialogue, the annual inflation keeps reducing the purchasing power of the intended nominal increase that comes out of the consultation of process.

This makes the intention of reviewing the minimum wage academic and a mockery to the vulnerable workers.

We cannot be reviewing the minimum after 10 years. The minimum wage should be indexed to the annual inflation. The projected annual inflation should be able to trigger the rapid stakeholder technical or working group consultation within 90 days to advise the Minister of Labour and Social Security to issue a Statutory Instrument (IS) so that minimum wage is adjusted accordingly.