File: Protests are looming over wage hikes. eNCA
JOHANNESBURG - The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) has rejected the signing into law of the National Minimum Wage Bill by President Cyril Ramaphosa.
"The minimum wage bill will legalise the poverty wage of R20 per hour. This is an insult to the working class who fought and died to defeat the apartheid government," Numsa national spokesperson Phakamile Hlubi-Majola said on Saturday.
"It is a fact that South Africa is one of the global leaders in the gap between CEO’s and ordinary workers.
"CEO’s in South Africa are paid obscene amounts of money, while the workers, who create the wealth, earn peanuts."
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The "poverty national minimum wage" would worsen the living conditions of workers.
"The amount was negotiated to "favour capital in order to give them flexibility and limit the hours which workers can work", Hlubi-Majola said.
"It is shameful that in this so-called democratic South Africa more than six million people earn less than this insignificant amount.
"This is an indictment against the ANC government for failing to promote an agenda to genuinely improve and transform the lives of the working class."
Numsa would continue to mobilise its members and the working class to fight against these "slavery wages", Hlubi-Majola said.
