Minimum wage

Minimum wage
By The Post
Sat 14 July 2012, 16:00 CAT

There has been an interesting debate over the recently announced minimum wages.
According to the Statutory Instrument No. 45 of 2012 signed by the Minister of Labour, Fackson Shamenda, on July 4, 2012, the minimum wage for a person engaged as a general worker, cleaner, handyman, an office orderly, watch person or guard must be K700,000 per month or K3,646 per hour.

A person engaged as a driver must be paid K1,002,386 per month or K5,220 per hour. Typists or receptionists must be paid not less than K1,085,919 per month or K5, 656 per hour. And a qualified clerk should be paid not less than K1,445,107 per month or K7,527 per hour. In short, no one in this country should be employed at a salary of not less than K700,000.

Workers have a right to a just wage. And this right obliges the employer to establish a just and fair remuneration. In the same light, the state is obliged to fix a minimum wage for the country. Such a minimum wage should be enough to guarantee to all workers dignified and decent living conditions for them and their families. In determining such a minimum wage, the following factors should be considered: the cost of living, the needs of the workers and their families and the availability of provisions for social security.

We appreciate and praise all that is being done to raise the standard of living of the less privileged people in our country. And much still needs to be done for the betterment of the lot of the unskilled worker, whose wage is generally far below that necessary for the proper maintenance of the family; for it should not be forgotten that the worker is not merely a cog in the industrial or commercial machine, but a human being, with human needs and human interests. Here, perhaps, more than anywhere else, justice must be accompanied and supplemented by compassion.

The rights of workers, like all rights, are based on the nature of the human person and on her and his transcendent dignity and among these rights are: a just wage; a working environment not harmful to the workers' physical health or their moral integrity; social security, and the right to assemble and form associations.
We are reminded in Mathew 20:4: "…so he told them, 'You also go and work in the vineyard, and I will pay you a fair wage'."

But there are challenges, there are practical difficulties in realising justice over wages. Today in this country, we have so many types of employers. Almost every one of us is an employer. A person whom the government has guaranteed a minimum wage of K700,000 per month is also an employer of another person. The challenge is how they are going to share that K700,000 and ensure that at the end of the month, each one of them takes home or remains with K700,000. This is arithmetically impossible.

We have a situation in this country where for one to go for work, they have to have a maid to take care of their children at home. And if that person is going to be paid K700,000 per month, how much are they going to remain with as employers to enable them to also take care of their own families?

What is the solution to this challenge? Do we simply ban or criminalise the employment of everyone below the minimum wage? If you can't afford the minimum wage, then you can't employ anyone! If the employer can't afford to pay you the minimum wage, then he can't employ you, no matter how desperate you are to take up that job that has a below minimum wage remuneration! Is this possible given our high levels of unemployment? But we all know that the effect of unemployment is degrading and making work available is most important

These are the challenges people are debating on radio station programmes across the width and breadth of our country. How is a lowly paid nurse, school teacher going to manage to pay the statutory minimum wage to her maid to enable her to go to work?

And the numbers we are talking about in this category of workers are gigantic, are huge. How are we going to manage to keep all these people in this type of employment at this minimum wage?

Of course, there are certain categories of employers who are today paying far below these new minimum wages when they can afford to pay much better remuneration to their workers. They are simply interested in maximising their profits even if it is at the expense of the workers. It is such employers the government minimum wages should target. Of course, the challenge here is on how to structure the minimum wage requirements so that they target those with the ability to pay and make them pay.

Where it is not possible for people to meet the minimum wage requirements, forcing them to do so won't work. We will simply have a law that is just on paper with many people not following it. And these new minimum wages are likely to be ignored by most of our people. The intention is certainly noble but the practicality of it seems to be difficult or impossible in certain respects.

Probably sometimes it may be better to leave things to the individuals concerned to agree and where there are injustices, then the state can step in to mitigate. This may also be helped by strengthening trade unions and enable them to recruit as many workers as possible. Unions which enable workers to improve their conditions should be valued and promoted by everybody in society. Therefore, the trade unions, to which the workers have a right, should acquire sufficient strengths and power.

And we end by reminding ourselves of what comrade KK said on this score at a rally in Chifubu, Ndola on January 17, 1965: "The responsibilities of trade unionism are to see that there is a decent wage, a decent life for each member, and also to see that more people are employed in the country. Trade union responsibilities do not begin and end with demanding more pay."