Agri Eastern Cape president, Douglas Stern, said the new National Minimum Wage proposal announced by deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa was “impractical”.
Ramaphosa said Wednesday that the quantum of a National Minimum Wage being applicable to all sectors of the economy.
South Africans who work between 40 and 45 hours a week will be paid a minimum of 20 Rand an a hour from May next year, according to Ramaphosa.
But, Stern said "people must understand that this is a politically driven motive from the government’s point of view."
He said it was not going to be sustainable, adding that agriculture could afford this sort of increase, especially at a time when many farmers were under pressure.
"Its interesting to note that the government admits that this increase will account for further job losses. I find this to be a very irresponsible statement when we are already sitting with an unemployment figure of around 27% in South Africa," said Stern.
"Although concessions have been made for the agricultural sector by phasing the increase in over a two-year period it is still going to have a very negative impact on our sector because (of) the current drought our farmers are having to battle through without any state aid, probably the worst in the past 100 years and still not broken," he said.
Stern said the drough was "having a huge financial impact on our farmers."
“We were seeking to balance the issue of increasing the wages of up to 6.6 millon workers [earning below R3,500 per month]…this wage could easily have been 20 thosusand rand 10 thousand rand. In doing so there would have been a negative impact where many workers would have lost their jobs through the introducuion of an overly high minium wage,” said Ramaphosa.
Ramaphosa stressed government did not believe this was a “living wage”, but that it was a start.
“If we get to the living wage we all desire, it would wipe out a lot of jobs.”
Ramaphosa said a commission would be set up to review the national mininum wage on an annual basis.
“We were seeking to balance the issue of increasing the wages of up to 6.6 millon workers [earning below R3,500 per month]…this wage could easily have been 20 thosusand rand 10 thousand rand. In doing so there would have been a negative impact where many workers would have lost their jobs through the introducuion of an overly high minium wage,” said Ramaphosa.
