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The proposed national minimum wage “seems to be ignorant of or indifferent to this country as the widest unequal society on Earth”.
This is according to the Food and Allied Workers Union following a proposed amount of R3500 a month.
Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa made the announcement regarding the proposed R20 an hour minimum wage yesterday. The amount was suggested by a commission appointed by the government.
While Fawu welcomed the thought process involved in including the national minimum wage the union did not understand the possible exclusion of the domestic and agricultural sectors in the newly announced proposal.
“We wish to reject the R3500 as inappropriate and far from addressing the treble challenges of unemployment, inequality and poverty where a chief executive would earn in one year what low paid workers must work for 10 000 years at R83 000 a year or R6700 a month,” Fawu’s Katishi Masemola said, using the example of Shoprite-Checkers chief executive Whitey Basson’s remuneration package of R830 million a year.
The union will push for a national minimum wage of R5700 a month.
“As Fawu, we will not only make submissions but wage campaigns because this country cannot afford to be the case study of treble-challenges and social ills,” Mademola said.
Fawu will be waging a campaign for the following:
» The introduction of new taxes, especially wealth and reparation taxes;
» An increased rate of both pay-as-you-earn and corporate taxes to the apartheid-days levels; and
» 10% tax to cash reserves by all, be it listed companies, privately owned companies, non-governmental organisations, public office bearers, trade unions or other civil society organisations.
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