Included in the list of top employers are:

• ABSA Bank
• British American Tobacco SA
• Coca-Cola SA
• Clicks Group
• City Lodge Group
• Denel land Systems
• Group Five
• Netcare
• Old Mutual
• Telkom Tsogo Sun Group
• Volkswagen

For the full list visit BEST Employers.

Matriculants should be realistic about their skills levels and job prospects,according to the report, and acquire technical skills such as computer repairs, plumbing, carpentry and motor repairs. Or, they could seek careers in the service industry, such as tourism. There is a general feeling that a matric certificate is not enough for many job requirements.

Learn a New Skill

Cape Chamber of Commerce executive director Viola Manuel advised matriculants who will not or can not further their studies at universities to opt for FET colleges.

She said there were excellent qualifications aimed specifically at sectors which were still growing and employing. It was also suggested that matriculants should also make themselves available at local businesses to learn new skills.

The Cape Chamber believes that business, labour, civil society and government have to work together to embrace a new framework if the economy is to deliver meaningful job creation.

Read more

Find out What Sort of Job would Suit You, and how to find it.

The Minister of Labour, Mildred Nelisiwe Oliphant, amended Sectoral Determination 7: Domestic Worker Sector (SD7) at the end of 2011. The amendments related to minimum wages only leaving all other conditions of work the same for the sector. 

The amendments to SD7 stipulate that from the 1 December 2011 to 30 November 2012 the minimum wage for domestic workers will be R1,625.70 per month in Area A (developed towns or municipalities) and R1,376.25 per month in Area B (all areas that fall outside of Area A). 

New Minimum Wage Figures

The minimum wage prior to this was R1,506.34 in Area A and R1,256.14 in Area B. The nominal increase of wages amounts to R119.36 per month in Area A and R120.11 in Area B or 8% and 9.6% respectively. This shows that the Department of Labour is attempting to grapple with the problem of low wages for domestic workers; however, it also shows that the attempt is meagre and may not amount to a real increase given that inflation is forecast to grow in 2012. 

Not Enough 

When domestic workers received an increase on 1 December 2010 this increase was quickly eroded by inflation. The increase received was 4.4% in Area A but inflation in October 2011 was already at 6% which means that domestic workers were 1.6% or R23.00 poorer than they were during 2010.

See Figures Below

* Inflation is estimated for 2012 at 6% and therefore inflation for period is also estimate.

The table above shows a forecast for 2012 showing that although domestic workers received a nominal rand increase every year since 2010 they would be R5.00 poorer towards the end of 2012 than they were in 2010. It shows that the increase that they received in 2010 and the increase they received with the latest amendment to the SD7 has not helped to overcome the loss they suffered during the past year. If inflation goes above 6% in the coming year their loss for the three year period would be worse.

Poor Get Poorer

How can the Department of Labour administer wages on the basis that the poor get poorer? Clearly there is not enough pressure on the government to raise people out of poverty even if the commitment is stated. Domestic workers will have to continue to organise, mobilise and build solidarity to ensure that rights are turned into reality. 

Saliem Patel is the Director of the Labour Research Service.

Read more

See the updated Minimum Wages for Domestic Workers and find out more about Domestic Workers and their Rights.

The review process is being spearheaded by the Tripartite Negotiating Forum (TNF) which includes government, industry and organised labour, and the parties are already drafting proposals for submission to cabinet.

Zimbabweans urged to get proactive

The existing legislation is not harmonised.  Speaking at the commemorations for the World Day of Safety and Health, Director of Labour Administration in the Ministry of Labour Mr. Paul Dzviti urged that despite laws to enforce occupational health and safety, stakeholders should be more proactive in maintaining a safe work environment.  “You need effort to prevent accidents and we are therefore calling upon management, employees and government to have a culture of occupational safety,” he said.

He observed that although the numbers of work accidents have been going down over the past three years, the figures are still high considering that industry is not operating at full capacity.  National Social Security Authority Director for Occupational Health and Safety Mr. Rodgers Dhliwayo echoed his sentiments when he said the number of workplace accidents still remain a cause for concern, and urged management and workers to be more alert.

World Safety Day

World Safety Day is an International Labour Organisation (ILO) initiative which began in 2003 centering on the prevention of illness and accidents in the workplace through ongoing social dialogue and stakeholder participation.  

Read more

Find out more about Decent Work and Labour Laws in Zimbabwe.

The Minister of Labour Paurina Mpariwa confirmed that the National Social Security Authority (NNSA) had instituted a probe after receiving reports that the Chinese were ill-treating workers to the extent of even physically assaulting them.

Mpariwa said:  “NSSA, through its Occupational Safety and Health Division conducted the necessary investigations through site visits to ascertain the accurate position.”

Unsafe and unhealthy conditions

Initial visits to the targeted companies had indicated that the most violated regulations included lack of toilet provisions, poor electrical installations, lack of personal protective clothing and absence of personal guards on machinery.

In some cases NNSA has suspended operations until all requirements have been met and in extreme cases culprits are being prosecuted.  These allegations were also confirmed by Mr.Mazarura who is the Secretary General of Zimbabwe Construction and Allied Traders Workers Union (ZCATWU). He said close to 12 000 members of the union were being subjected to inhuman treatment and that out of the complaints received so far the most serious offence received by the union involved physical assault.

Dismissals and more

There are also allegations that employees are being dismissed without being given adequate notice, and that at certain workplaces there is an absence of separate toilet facilities with women and men sharing the same ablution facilities.

According to Mazarura efforts to resolve the disputes are futile as the Chinese reportedly claim “government immunity”.

Meanwile, Minister Mpariwa has confirmed that her ministry was at an advanced stage in implementing recommendations by the (ILO) so that the country conformed to ILO Safety Standards.

Read more

Find out more about Decent Work and Labour Laws in Zimbabwe.

There were some of the findings that emerged from an international workshop on minimum wages and awareness raising held in Maputo, Mocambique in October. The workshop formed part of the Minimum Wage campaign being run by Mywage and Meusalario in southern Africa. Included in the workshop were representatives from the media, research institutions, trade unions and governmental departments from Mocambique, Zambia and South Africa. The workshop, organised by Wage Indicator, featured submissions from OTM, Mywage, Meusalario, the Labour Research Service, the Centre for Economic and Management Studies, the ILO and STV station. 

Spreading Minimum Wage information

Participants debated the efficacy of making information such as minimum wages available, and whether the spread of this information could lead to improved labour justice. Several key issues emerged from the series of debates. These included:

• Many workers are not aware of their basic workplace rights.
• Many workers and employers do not seem to be aware of minimum wages for their sectors.
• State-enforced compliance with labour laws and minimum wages is lacking.
• The trade unions, traditionally seen as a source of information for workers, were not always providing it.
• There is a need for synergy between ministries, NGOs, trade unions and research units who often work on the same issues, but separately.

Creating dialogue

Egidio Vaz, regional manager for Meusalario in Mocambique and Angola, said the workshop had been a great success in terms of creating dialogue between key players, and debating crucial labour-related issues. “We brought together unions, ministries, journalists and academics to discuss the impact of labour information on workers. While we can feel satisfied that websites such as Meusalario and Mywage are clearly fulfilling a need for free and accessible information, our next step is to look at compliance and how we can report on this”, he said.

Read more

Find out more about Minimum Wages in South Africa.

Internationally, there is unprecedented public demand for decent jobs, and pressure is mounting on banks and the finance industry. International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) General Secretary Sharan Burrow says: "More than 200 million people worldwide are unemployed according to official figures, and hundreds of millions more lack decent, secure jobs.

"People’s rights at work are under attack as never before, and governments lack the vision and commitment to fix a global economy which is failing working people."

Global events

Today’s events include some 50 activities across Japan, with marches, conferences and youth meetings in several African countries and meetings and mobilisations throughout Russia and Ukraine. A series of activities in Latin America includes initiatives by trade unions in Peru and Chile to get official government recognition of the World Day for Decent Work.

Read more

Find out about Decent Work in South Africa.

“To date, more than 308,000 work opportunities have been created since the beginning of the current fiscal year, with most of the work opportunities created in the infrastructure sector,” she said.

The jobs include community safety, mass participation in sport, mass literacy, school nutrition programmes,the cemetery management programme and the waste management programme.

Food for Waste

The public works department is also implementing a food for waste programme, in which communities receive food vouchers for collecting waste and taking it to collection depots.

The vouchers are redeemable for groceries at participating local outlets.

The programme assists municipalities with waste collection services, especially where municipalities are unable to provide this service. The programme is now being rolled out in 30 municipalities in the provinces, creating over 3000 job opportunities for poor and vulnerable communities.

Read more

Find out about Minimum Wages in South Africa.

Basically, the youth are feeling the job crisis the worst, with a total of 1.2 million unemployed between the ages of 20-24, while a further 1 million are 25-29, according to  figures released by the University of Cape Town's School of Economics.

Reasons for Unemployment

Some of the reasons given for the high rate of unemployment amongst young people include tough labour regulations, the failure of the national education system and a lack of skilled workers. 

Current labour regulations make it difficult to fire - and hire - people, which means employers are unwilling to take a risk with young and unskilled workers.

The failing education system and the lack of skills training facilities mean that youth are not sufficiently prepared to fit into the workplace.

To emphasise this point, according to figures by leading staffing group Adcorps Holdings, in South Africa there is currently a shortage of 432 100 technicians, 216 000 managers and 178 400 professionals, and a surplus of 967 600 elementary workers and 247 400 domestic workers.

Read more

Find out more about Getting into the Workplace with our helpful tips.

The aim of the Decisions for Life project is to raise awareness among young female workers about their employment opportunities, career possibilities, their workplace rights and the work-family balance. Already more than 1000 young women in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban and Limpopo have been involved in the project.

The Right to a Decent Life!

For young women, choosing careers, responding to challenges at home and at work, balancing work and life and planning futures are all important decisions. Through discussions, social networks, workshops, trade union meetings and everyday interaction at the workplace, as well as using the internet, the Decisions for Life campaign invites all young women to take the power to make decisions about their lives!

The Johannesburg event: 

When: August 17

The JHB DFL team are celebrating Women’s Month with a Road Show in the Vaal, south of Johannesburg. As part of this Road Show we will be visiting workplaces, local clinics and community income generating projects, to meet with young women to popularise the campaign. 

The Durban event:

When: August 20 (10am-3pm)

As part of our celebration of Women’s Month Durban the DFL Team have organised a “Wellness Day for Young Working Women.” 

Where: Diakonia, 20 Diakonia Avenue, Durban. 

For the above (Jo'burg and Durban) contact Nina on 084 322 3313 or nina@lrs.org.za for details.

The Limpopo event 

When: September 10

A spring “Health Walk” will be held, focussing on  taking care of ourselves as young working women. The walk will end at the SABC Park where young women will perform poetry and songs. 

For the above contact Nosipho on 072 153 1779 or nosipho@lrs.org.za for details.

The Cape Town event:

When: September 10 (10am – 4pm)

The Cape Town DFL  team will hold an open market day, featuring a variety of organisations and institutions including career advisors, gender activists, trade unionists, youth movements and more.

Where: Labour Research Service, Community House, 41 Salt River Road, Salt River

For the above contact Anilla on 021-447 1677 or anilla@lrs.org.za for details.

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Find out more about the Decisions for Life campaign.

South Africa’s Competition Tribunal said it had approved with conditions the U.S. retailer’s plan to buy a 51 percent stake in Massmart. The companies must ensure no jobs are cut for two years and that existing labour agreements are honored for three years after the purchase.

New jobs and new stores

Walmart has said it will create 15,000 jobs in South Africa within the next five years, with a proposed strategy that includes opening new stores, and spending 60 billion rand ($8.7 billion) on additional purchases of food and fast-moving consumer goods, mostly from local suppliers.

However, the American retail firm has been criticised by three government departments for their unwillingness to make any binding commitments that would address public interest concerns about the impact of the merger on local procurement, food security and broad-based black economic empowerment (BEE).

Reputation as a "bad employer"

Trade unions in South Africa are also concerned about Walmart's international reputation as a "bad employer". Key issues are future job losses (once the two-year "cooling off"period is over), low wages, draconian workplace rules,anti-unionism and fears that Wal-Mart will use its buying power to boost imports, harming local industries and suppliers.

WalMart is the world’s largest employer with 2.1 million workers. But many cities and even countries do not want the retail presence in their neighborhood, including New York. Accusations of paying below minimum wage, discrimination against female workers and a negative attitude towards unions have frequently been levelled against the multinational.

Read more

Find out more about Minimum Wages in South Africa. And check if you have Decent Work.

Juan Somavia, ILO Director-General, said that in concentrating on the domestic work sector, the ILO was moving its standards system into the informal economy for the first time, and this was "a breakthrough of great significance".

Conference delagates adopted the Convention on Domestic Workers (2011) and accompaning Recommendations. The Convention is an international treaty that is binding on Member States that ratify it, while the Recommendation provides more detailed guidance on how to apply the Convention.

Decent work for Domestic Workers

The new ILO standards set out that domestic workers who care for families and households, must have the same basic labour rights as those available to other workers: reasonable hours of work, weekly rest of at least 24 consecutive hours, a limit on in-kind payment, clear information on terms and conditions of employment, as well as respect for fundamental principles and rights at work including freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining. 

Recent research puts the number of domestic workers around the world at 53 million, but this figure could actually be as high as 100 million due to the informal and unregistered nature of the sector, say experts.

Domestic Workers are Vulnerable

The new Convention says that “domestic work continues to be undervalued and invisible and is mainly carried out by women and girls, many of whom are migrants or members of disadvantaged communities and who are particularly vulnerable to discrimination in respect of conditions of employment and work, and to other abuses of human rights.”

Read more

Find out more about Domestic Workers' Rights in South Africa and Minimum Wages for Domestic Workers in South Africa.

The DFL is in its third year, and has successfully attracted thousands of young women workers to become involved in activities which educate, inform and strengthen, at home and in the workplace. 

DFL is aimed at empowering young women to make informed decisions concerning their careers, their working conditions and their work-life balance. It specifically targets young women in the service industries because these industries employ the majority of working women aged 18-29, and because these industries are growing.

Apart from South Africa, DFL focuses on 13 developing countries, notably Brazil, India, Indonesia, the CIS countries Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and the southern African countries Angola, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Namibia and Zimbabwe. 

Some achievements so far

• DFL has reached out to more than 90 000 women internationally, of whom 30% have joined a union.
• DFL has achieved gender clauses in collective agreements – for example, South Africa has achieved five new collective agreements with clauses on sexual harassment and gender rights.
• More women are becoming activists and leaders – for example, in South Africa women held 40% of decision-making positions in SACCAWU by June 2010.

The conference

The conference has been dedicated to the memory of Tabisa Sigaba of the South African DFL campaign, who passed away in a tragic accident. It aims to consolidate the achievements made by DFL participants in all countries, specifically looking at successful ways of getting young women involved, looking at what challenges young women are facing, and the most effective ways of providing support and information to young women. 

Read more

Find out more about the international Decisions for Life campaign.

Workers Not Paid Overtime

This is the main outcome of a comparison between 23 countries, based on 190,000 wage surveys volunteered by Wage Indicator web visitors over the past two years. Included in the report are countries in South America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe and the East.

The report, titled Overtime does not Pay: A comparative analysis of wages in 23 countries in times of recession, is authored by Bruno Perinelli and Victor A. Beker of Argentina, for the Wage Indicator foundation. 

The survey indicates that 41.2 per cent of employees in 2010 worked more hours than previously agreed in their contracts. From this group of overtime workers, only 1.3 per cent received additional compensation. Similarly, in 2009 four out of ten employees worked overtime, but only 1.1 per cent of them were rewarded for their extra efforts.

This picture emerges in almost all countries reviewed, regardless of region or level of development. 

Overtime and Pay in South Africa

While South Africa was not included in the survey, it is realistic to assume that a similar pattern of overtime and underpay is in operation in the country. South Africa has very straightforward rules as far as overtime is concerned – according to the Basic Conditions of Employment Act (BCEA), all overtime is voluntary and may only be worked by agreement between employer and employee. 

Remuneration must be at 1, 5 times the normal wage rate except for Sunday work and work on public holidays, which must be remunerated at twice the normal wage rate. However, whether this is being strictly adhered to is questionable, given the international rate of non-compliance.

Read more

Find out more about Hours and Overtime in South Africa. And check up on Minimum Wages.

Now Mywage South Africa offers an International Salary Check, where South Africans can measure their salary against others in the same occupation group, in other countries. To date, South Africans can make comparisons with salary earners in The Netherlands, Paraguay, Belarus and Indonesia, with more countries to follow. Salary figures appear in Rands, US Dollars and Euros.

Different Salary Ranges

Salary ranges are based on a number of criteria, including gender, education and years of experience. As an example - according to the international Salary Check , a South African primary school teacher with a higher education qualification and six years work experience, could expect to earn around R52.17 per hour. This adds up to R8585.00 per month. In comparison, a teacher in the Netherlands with exactly the same criteria is earning around R88.68 per hour, making it R14 592.00 per month.

Obviously, different cost of living and inflation must be taken into consideration, but it still offers an interesting perspective.

Try the International Salary Check now!

Read more

Find out more about Minimum Wages in South Africa.

The in-depth analysis is based on a comparison between 11 countries, found in Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia. Regardless of the level of development of the economy or region of the world, the same pattern emerges, within varying degrees.

For example, a Danish woman earns 91 percent of the pay her professional male peers receive. Denmark has the smallest gender pay gap. At the other end of the scale, Indian women on average get 64 per cent of what male workers with the same qualifications earn in the same occupation.

Still working at home

On top of the pay gap, most women put in longer working hours per day, as most women worldwide still take on the majority share of domestic chores at home. This means that their leisure time is less, and their overall working hours are more, than their male peers, on average.

Not suprisingly, almost half of the working women included in the Wage Indicator survey expressed dissatisfied with the current state of affairs. The majority of working men indicated they were satisfied to enjoy their leisure time after work.

Wage Indicator has been collecting wage data online since 2001 in a growing number of countries worldwide, including South Africa. In 2011 the countries number 55. For the full report read The Gender Gap - A comparative analysis of wages in time of recession.

Read more 

Find out more about Women and Work in South Africa. And take our Salary Check to see how your wages add up in comparison to others.

So says Thulile Motsamai, trade union representative at the Birchwood Executive hotel in Johannesburg, and one of the key players in the Decisions for Life campaign in South Africa.

Know Your Rights

Thulile is involved with helping young South African women gain awareness of their rights and develop within the South Africa Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers Union, SACCAWU. The Decisions for Life campaign is an International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) project aimed at young women, which informs them not only about their rights in the workplace but also in their homes, at school, and elsewhere, in order that they can make informed decision about their lives. Thulile has been active in taking the message to supermarkets, cybercafes, to the streets, children’s homes, shelters for women who have suffered domestic violence and the unions themselves.

"We are trying to reach as many young people as possible, because if your CV shows that you have no work experience, employers see you as easy prey, as a person they can underpay and exploit to the hilt. When you are aware of your rights it is different," says Thulile.

Get organised

"We also take the opportunity to inform young women about the benefits of being unionised," says Thulile. "The image people have of trade unionists is usually that seen on television: middle aged or older men and women, hardly any young people. We try to change this perception, to show them that they have a place in the trade union movement, that their points of view can be heard, that they are just as important as everyone else, that age is of no consequence."

"Our message is really to say to women: "Take your own decisions", be it about moving house, starting a family, having sexual relations, getting married or not, etc. When we are capable of deciding for ourselves, we are capable of doing it in all other areas, such as choosing a job," she continues.

Make a difference

Thulile says the campaign has made a big difference in her workplace. "The campaign has helped build our self confidence and to demand our place as stakeholders in collective bargaining negotiations," she says. "Ever since we started taking part in negotiations ourselves, we have been able to raise the points that interest us the most and have our demands adopted. We have succeeded in negotiating a policy on parental rights, the signing of a policy on sexual harassment, a policy on health and safety, another on HIV, and have secured a commitment from the company to reimburse 50% of medical costs (which we are trying to push up to 75%)."

"I want to change something in the lives of young people, something to ensure that their views are heard and acted on," says Thulile.

Read more 

Read the Full Interview with Thulile. And find out more about Women and Work in South Africa.

These are some of the findings released by the Wage Indicator Foundation, based on comparative research carried out between 11 countries in Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia. The findings are featured in the Wage Indicator quarterly report, which focuses on gender issues on the occasion of Women’s Day, March 8.

Education doesn't add up

With respect to education, the research surveys were divided into three educational groups: those who didn’t finish their basic studies; those with a middle education and/or education after high-school; and those with academic or post-graduate degrees. For each of these groups the gender pay gap was calculated. Those at the lower education end showed an average gender pay gap of between 18 to 20 per cent, as compared to female academics, with economists topping the bill with a pay gap of almost 30 percent.

Age widens the gap

It was also found that the older the worker, the wider the wage gap between men and women.  Amongst workers under 25 the average gender pay gap is 15 percent, i.e. women earn 85 per cent of their male counterparts. Then, till 35, this gender wage gap widens to an average of 19 percent. In the middle-age group (35-50) the gap expands to 25 percent. During the last years of working life this earnings gap keeps widening but at a slower rate. Women over 50 earn 73 percent of what men their age make. 

Wage Indicator has been collecting wage data online since 2001 in a growing number of countries worldwide, including South Africa. In 2011 the countries number 55. For the full report read The Gender Gap - A comparative analysis of wages in time of recession.

Read more 

Find out more about Women and Work in South Africa. And take our Salary Check to see how your wages add up in comparison to others.

Chibebe, 47, will complete his current term as General Secretary of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU). He will then  join ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow and Deputy General Secretary Jaap Wienen as a full-time elected official after the ZCTU Congress later this year.

"Wellington Chibebe has an outstanding record as a leader in Zimbabwe, defending workers rights and campaigning for democracy, and is a highly-respected trade unionist both in Africa and around the world. We look forward to his talent, energy and commitment being deployed as a key part of our international team," said Burrow.

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Find out more about Trade Unions.

The proportion of workers with a written contract also increased significantly during this time, as did the number of workers with an employer paying UIF contributions on their behalf, or contributions to a pension/retirement fund.

However, there are a significant number of employers in South Africa who are still violating minimum wage laws across all sectoral determinations. 

These were part of the findings released in a presentation by Virgil Seafield of the Department of Labour at the FEDUSA Collective Bargaining Conference held recently in Johannesburg. Focusing on “The Effect of Minimum Wage Setting in Vulnerable sectors in South Africa”, it was found that while setting minimum wages in 11 sectors in South Africa had had a positive effect in some sectors, in terms of wages, poverty and employment levels, enforcement of minimum wages remains a concern.

Increase in wages

It was found that overall real wages of covered workers increased significantly at 2.1 percent per annum between 2001 and 2007. This rise in real wages was driven by the domestic and farm worker sectors, which experienced real wage increases of 6.6 and 7.3 percent respectively. The significant rise in wage levels in these two sectors may indicate that minimum wages have had an effect on vulnerable sectors. However, domestic and farm workers still remain amongst the most vulnerable in the labour market.

Poverty and wages

The presentation also included a more formal analysis of the impact of minimum wages on poverty, using the definition of poverty as wage poverty (excluding income from grants and household assets).

The study analysed the impact of minimum wage legislation on the poverty status of individuals, measured by their household poverty. This allowed some broad conclusions to be made about whether the poverty status of these households have improved since the introduction of minimum wage legislation. 

It was found that there was a decline in poverty during the 2001 to 2007 period. This was evident across all sectoral determinations, with the exception of the taxi sector and the civil engineering sector. The decline in poverty levels is most apparent for workers covered by the domestic, farm and forestry sectoral determinations and least evident for those employed in the contract cleaning sector.  

It was also fund that households with workers dependent on wages subject to minimum wage legislation are likely to be poor, whereas households where wage earners are not covered by sectoral determinations (their wages may for instance be set by bargaining council agreements) are less likely to lie below the poverty line. 

However, whilst an increase in enforcement of the sectoral minimum wages would lower poverty, the minimum wage is not the only instrument needed for poverty eradication.  Minimum wages may not be the only source of income for a household.

Decent work? Not quite

Whilst overall there was an improvement in working conditions amongst workers covered by sectoral determinations during the 2001 to 2007 period, domestic workers still remained the worst off, along with workers in the farm, forestry and taxi sectors. 

Domestic, farm, forestry and taxi workers were the least likely to receive benefits such as paid leave, a written contract, pension/retirement, UIF, and medical aid. In other sectors, there was an increase in all these areas, from receiving benefits to getting a written contract.

Compliance

There were a significant number of employers in South Africa who are violating minimum wage laws across all sectoral determinations, the presentation has found.

In 2007, 45 percent of all workers covered by sectoral determinations were not being paid the legal minimum. Non-complying employers paid wages that were on average 36 percent short of the legislative minima in that year.  But although non-compliance levels are high, there is some evidence to suggest that non-compliance declined during the 2001 to 2007 period. The proportion of violated workers fell from 55 to 45 percent.

Firm-level and contractual factors seem to play an important role in compliance, notably the nature of a contract, union membership, the length of tenure, and the formality of the firm. 

The labour inspectorate deployed in predicting the size of the violation, as well as the importance of the local unemployment rate are also significant factors. 

Read more

Are you earning the correct Minimum Wage? And find out how your salary compares to others with our Salary Check.

The government has stated its intention to create 5 million jobs in the next ten years, which would form part of the New Growth Path programme. But there has not been any public discussion over what sort of jobs would be created.

Decent Work campaign

Cosatu has been campaigning for decent work, and the decent work campaign was adopted by the ANC at the 2007 Polokwane conference. The basic tenets of decent work include issues such as access to leave, hours of work, minimum wages, safety, non-discrimination and related topics. All of these should be in place in order for a workplace to fully comply with decent work standards.

However, ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe has said that the ANC aimed to “get people into work and once they were there, unions could use their bargaining power to secure a good deal.”

Echoing these sentiments, Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant said that “we need to start with productive work. We need jobs and employment possibilities …”.

Cosatu has said that it notes with concern that in the past decade there had been an increase in atypical and non-standard forms of employment. These are typically areas where non-compliance with decent work standards could be found.

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Find out all about Decent Work in South Africa. 

Researchers Professor Haroon Bhorat, Professor Ravi Kanbur and Natasha Mayet found that security guards, farm workers, domestic helpers and certain retail workers, in particular, lose out because the regulations are not enforced.

Paid less then the law

A total of 67% of the country’s security guards are paid less than the minimum. In 55% of cases farm workers are underpaid and these workers receive on average 31% less than they are entitled to according to law.

About 47% of the workers in the taxi industry are also underpaid. They receive on average 38% less. In contrast, minimum wages in civil engineering and in the sector for retail managers are generally complied with.

Unemployment linked to low wages

Minimum wages are especially disregarded in regions with higher unemployment rates than the country’s average.

The presence of the 800 or so Department of Labour inspectors in various areas only has a slight effect. 

Workers belonging to unions or those working for government institutions or larger companies more often receive the prescribed wage.

Read more

Are you receiving the Minimum Wage for your job? Find out here.

However, he says that job creation is to top the cabinet’s agenda when it meets for its lekgotla later in January to establish its programme for the year.

President Zuma said that the government would “think very hard” about how it would grow job opportunities.

At the same time, government has pledged R150 million for students who are studying subjects that address South Africa's skills shortages. The National Student Financial Aid Scheme would include money for first year students, for rural students and for disabled students.

Read more

Find out more about getting a job in our Work Smart section.

Labour Law and Bonuses

South African Labour Law is silent on the question of bonuses. If an employer wishes to pay or not pay a bonus to an employee, that is their decision to make. They can choose to negotiate with employees. But if they do not pay a bonus, it is not an unfair labour practice.

The Christmas Bonus or 13th Cheque

Many employees have come to expect the payment of the 13th cheque as a right or as a condition of employment. At job application interviews most applicants will ask "do you pay a 13th Cheque?" 

However, it is not covered by labour law - payment is at the discretion of the employer. This should be covered in an employees terms and conditions of service.

If a company or employer has been paying employees an annual 13th cheque, but then wishes to discontinue or change the situation, such changes do constitute a change to the employees' terms and conditions of employment. This cannot be done unilaterally - it must be negotiated with the employees. However, if the employer has sound and reasonable commercial reasons for making the change, then they can implement it after negotiations, even if all employees do not agree to it.

However, it would be fair to employees who are expecting a 13th cheque to help with holiday payments, presents and such like to be informed well in advance - perferably up to six months in advance - if such a change will take place.

The bottom line remains - a 13th cheque or christmas bonus is not a right, but an "extra". 

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