{"id":290814,"date":"2018-12-13T08:07:52","date_gmt":"2018-12-13T06:07:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=290814"},"modified":"2018-12-13T08:07:52","modified_gmt":"2018-12-13T06:07:52","slug":"how-much-you-will-be-fined-for-not-paying-minimum-wage-and-other-labour-laws-coming-into-effect-in-the-new-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/290814\/how-much-you-will-be-fined-for-not-paying-minimum-wage-and-other-labour-laws-coming-into-effect-in-the-new-year\/","title":{"rendered":"How much you will be fined for not paying minimum wage &#8211; and other labour laws coming into effect in the new year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The National Minimum Wage Act and the Labour Relations Amendment Act were officially gazetted on Wednesday (12 December), with both pieces of legislation now set to come into effect from 1 January 2019.<\/p>\n<p>The National Minimum Wage Act (NMWA) aims to address the income disparities in the South African labour market by introducing a national minimum wage.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Different hourly rates apply to agricultural\/farm workers (R18 per hour) and domestic workers (R15 per hour).<\/p>\n<p>An explanatory note <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cliffedekkerhofmeyr.com\/export\/sites\/cdh\/en\/news\/publications\/2018\/Employment\/Downloads\/Employment-Alert-3-December-2018.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">published<\/a> <\/strong>by legal firm Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr also notes that the\u00a0NMWA establishes the <strong>National Minimum Wage Commission<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The Commission will be <strong>responsible for reviewing the national minimum wage<\/strong> on an annual basis.<\/p>\n<p>In deciding on the annual adjustment, the following factors will be considered:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Cost of living;<\/li>\n<li>Minimum living levels;<\/li>\n<li>Alleviation of poverty;<\/li>\n<li>Wage differentials and inequality;<\/li>\n<li>Conditions of employment;<\/li>\n<li>Health, safety and welfare of workers;<\/li>\n<li>Employment levels;<\/li>\n<li>Inflation;<\/li>\n<li>Gross Domestic Product growth;<\/li>\n<li>State of collective bargaining.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>After the review process is complete, the Commission will be responsible for submitting written recommendations to the Minister of Labour regarding the proposed adjustment.<\/p>\n<p>Employers who fail to pay employees in line with the NMWA may be subject to a fine.<\/p>\n<p>The fine is calculated <strong>per employee<\/strong> as the greater amount of <strong>double the value of the underpayment <\/strong>or<strong> double the employee\u2019s monthly wage<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>The Labour Relations Amendment Act<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Labour Relations Amendment Act (LRAA) changes various provisions of the Labour Relations Act &#8211; most of which will impact collective bargaining.<\/p>\n<p>The LRAA provides for the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Extension of bargaining council agreements to non-parties by the Minister of Labour;<\/li>\n<li>Extension of funding agreements of bargaining councils;<\/li>\n<li>Picketing through collective agreement or through prescribed picketing rules;<\/li>\n<li>Extension of the meaning of ballot for a strike or lock-out to include a secret vote;<\/li>\n<li>Creation of an advisory arbitration panel.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Under the LRAA, an <strong>advisory arbitration panel has been established<\/strong> to resolve strikes (or lockouts) that are obstinate or violent.<\/p>\n<p>The panel may also intervene if there is potential for the strike (or lockout) to cause a local or national crisis.<\/p>\n<p>It will have the power to investigate the cause and circumstances of the strike (or lockout) and release an advisory arbitration award to assist the parties in resolving the dispute.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong> Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/289670\/economic-predictions-for-south-africa-in-2019\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Economic predictions for South Africa in 2019<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The National Minimum Wage Act and the Labour Relations Amendment Act were officially gazetted on Wednesday (12 December), with both pieces of legislation now set to come into effect from 1 January 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":212411,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-290814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290814"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":290824,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290814\/revisions\/290824"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}