By Dirk de Vos –
As we approach the labour relations indaba to be hosted by Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, our focus will turn to the issue of determining a national minimum wage. In the lead up to the indaba, we can expect various interest groups, backed by all sorts of economic research, to support their predetermined positions on the matter.
One line of argument, something we see from Neil Coleman of Cosatu, is that imposing a minimum wage has no impact on unemployment and may indeed actually increase employment. This is backed up with research, analysis and examples from other countries such as Brazil. None of these arguments present a convincing case. This is not to say that there are no convincing arguments for a national minimum wage, but like everything in life, there are costs attached to the policy and we should examine who will bear those costs and their consequences.
It does not help the debate much when those opposing the minimum wage are likely to be mostly employers or earning salaries well above any proposed minimum wage. How can this lot have anything to say about what it must be like to be a low-skilled employee with wages that are so dire that it is impossible to maintain any semblance of a decent life? How can they imagine the deprivation and the emotional drain of merely existing so that, over time, demoralization sets in to the point that one ceases to be even useful at the dead-end job itself? Whatever the merits of the arguments against the imposition of a meaningful minimum wage, they usually are made by those with an obvious self-serving agenda.
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