Minimum wage exemptions will leave workers worse off than before, NGO says
General workers will be paid R18 an hour instead of R20, farm workers R16.20 instead of R18 and domestic workers R13,50 instead of R15
The exemption provided for in regulations under the National Minimum Wage Act means that workers in some sectors will, in effect, be earning poverty wages, the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice & Dignity Group said in a statement. “When the national minimum wage was first mooted, it was said that it would help the 6.7-million lowest paid workers earning less than R4,000 a month. Now that the National Minimum Wage Act has been passed and with the publication of the regulations, which see exemption thresholds taking 10% off the hourly rate for workers, the wages of many of the most vulnerable workers will be set even lower than the current sectoral determinations,” the group's programme co-ordinator, Mervyn Abrahams, said. “We had been promised that the national minimum wage would come in at a higher level than the sectoral determinations, as this rate is already considered by many workers as a poverty wage. The introduction of the national minimum wage regulations will mean that many...
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