{"id":290966,"date":"2018-12-14T07:54:38","date_gmt":"2018-12-14T05:54:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=290966"},"modified":"2018-12-14T07:54:38","modified_gmt":"2018-12-14T05:54:38","slug":"mistake-in-minimum-wage-law-a-massive-crisis-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/290966\/mistake-in-minimum-wage-law-a-massive-crisis-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Mistake in minimum wage law a &#8216;massive crisis&#8217;: report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A mistake identified in the incoming National Minimum Wage Act could prove problematic for workers.<\/p>\n<p>According to a report by <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/national\/2018-12-14-minimum-wage-act--bungle-leaves-workers-exposed-to-employers-dodging-new-law\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">BusinessDay<\/a><\/strong>, a section which states it is &#8220;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&#8221;, ended up being cross-referenced to the wrong clause in the act.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Lawmakers have attributed the error to &#8216;human error&#8217; and noted that this type of issue was not uncommon and can be fixed.<\/p>\n<p>However, Cosatu parliamentary co-ordinator Matthew Parks told Business Day that the blunder was a &#8220;massive crisis&#8221; that could put many workers at risk.<\/p>\n<p>He said that the mistake was due to sloppy legal drafting and editing by the department of labour and parliament\u2019s legal drafters.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;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,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>The National Minimum Wage Act (NMWA) is set come into effect from 1 January 2019.<\/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<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"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\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">How much you will be fined for not paying minimum wage \u2013 and other labour laws coming into effect in the new year<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A mistake identified in the incoming National Minimum Wage Act could prove problematic for workers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":114832,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-290966","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\/290966","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=290966"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":290968,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290966\/revisions\/290968"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}