Mistake in minimum wage law a ‘massive crisis’: report
A mistake identified in the incoming National Minimum Wage Act could prove problematic for workers.
According to a report by BusinessDay, a section which 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 means that workers currently have no recourse against their employer, should their benefits or working conditions be changed unilaterally in reaction to the new minimum wage law.
Lawmakers have attributed the error to ‘human error’ and noted that this type of issue was not uncommon and can be fixed.
However, Cosatu parliamentary co-ordinator Matthew Parks told Business Day that the blunder was a “massive crisis” that could put many workers at risk.
He said that the mistake was due to sloppy legal drafting and editing by the department of labour and parliament’s legal drafters.
“It thus leaves workers exposed and vulnerable to employers who may have reduced their wages and benefits in the run-up to the national minimum wage,” he said.
The National Minimum Wage Act (NMWA) is set come into effect from 1 January 2019.
Read together with certain sections of the Basic Conditions of Employment Amendment Act, the NMWA states that employees will be entitled to R20 for each ordinary hour worked.
Different hourly rates apply to agricultural/farm workers (R18 per hour) and domestic workers (R15 per hour).
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