A draft bill to amend the National Minimum Wage Act to correct the mistaken cross-referencing in the legislation has been published in the Government Gazette by parliament’s labour committee. The mistake potentially left workers vulnerable to employers who intended to circumvent the legislation. The labour committee has called for public comments on the draft bill before March 15. President Cyril Ramaphosa promulgated the act in November last year and it came into effect on January 1. Soon after it became operational, the technical error in the cross-referencing became apparent. The May 1 2017 “retrospective” implementation of a section that states it is “unfair labour practice for an employer to unilaterally alter wages, hours of work or other conditions of employment in connection with the implementation of the national minimum wage”, ended up being cross-referenced to the wrong clause in the act. This affected workers whose benefits or working conditions are changed unilaterally ...
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