LETTER: The downside of the minimum wage law
Legislation will probably cause a 15% increase in the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration’s caseload
The article Minimum wage body finally appointed, January 28, refers. It is wrong to allege that President Cyril Ramaphosa only signed the bill into law because he was unhappy with the tussle over candidates that delayed the implementation. In fact, parliament was not ready in May 2018 and was still debating the legislation way beyond May.. Ramaphosa had promised in his state of the nation address that the law would be implemented on 1 May 2018, a promise which could not have been kept by any stretch of the imagination. The fear that the minimum wage will lead to mass job losses has already started to come to pass. The government cannot say that this is an “unintended consequence” as it has been warned for over two years. Even the Treasury warned the department of labour that there will be mass job losses. Subsequent to the implementation of the legislation, Cosatu warned that there has been a “jobs bloodbath”. Over and above this, I have just conducted an oversight visit to the Comm...
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