ANC considering minimum wage for SA

LazyLion

LazyLion

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Johannesburg - The African National Congress is in talks with its labor allies on imposing a minimum wage to help redistribute wealth in the economy.

While the ANC's programme to boost black participation in the economy has focused on ownership, a minimum wage is aimed at broadening income distribution, Enoch Godongwana, head of the party's economic committee, told reporters in Johannesburg on Monday.

The ANC is facing its toughest election, on May 7, since taking power in 1994 amid growing dissatisfaction with a 24 percent unemployment rate, and a lack of housing, water and other basic services in poor townships. Two decades after the end of apartheid white South Africans still earn on average six times more than their black counterparts.

Labor Minister Mildred Oliphant said the ANC is looking at minimum wage policies in Brazil and China. The ruling party's manifesto plans for a minimum wage in five year's time, she said.

President Jacob Zuma said in an interview on March 6 that the government must push for increased black ownership of the economy because the ANC's empowerment policy hasn't done enough to redistribute wealth.

Tito Mboweni, a member of the ANC's economic committee and a former governor of the central bank, told reporters today that the party wants “deep intervention” in the financial sector to improve access to capital for black businesses.

The ANC will discuss creating a state-owned bank, possibly through the South African Post Office's PostBank, Mboweni said.

Bloomberg
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http://www.iol.co.za/business/news/anc-considering-minimum-wage-for-sa-1.1658903
 
Why is it always black vs white with ANC? O yes... to get votes.

Why can't the ANC try at least to make the whole SA an investment friendly environment for the world? So that ALL south Africans (no matter race) can get a pound of bacon?

O yes.. I forgot. ANC is out for their own pockets. Don't care about SA...
 
TelkomUseless said:
Why is it always black vs white with ANC? O yes... to get votes.

Why can't the ANC try at least to make the whole SA an investment friendly environment for the world? So that ALL south Africans (no matter race) can get a pound of bacon?

O yes.. I forgot. ANC is out for their own pockets. Don't care about SA...
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Dont come here with your counter revolutionary tendencies!
 
I think the problem is job creation, not what people are earning.
Maybe try to up the standard of education, then people will be employable at a higher wage.
 
Minimum wage?

Have they forgotten about the BCOE Act?

I would imagine that the majority of folks employed today are covered either by the terms of the various Sectoral Determinations or are excluded from the conditions of the BCOE (National Defence Force, National Intelligence Agency, or South African Secret Service; or unpaid volunteers working for charity.).
 
I will be interested to see what ridiculous figure they come up with as a "minimum wage"
 
Hopefully this goes through and they try to push a minimum wage that sits between 30% and 50% of GDP per capita.

Nod said:
I think the problem is job creation, not what people are earning.
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Job creation is truly, really, a non-issue. Opportunity creation is something they should be focusing on.

Nod said:
Maybe try to up the standard of education, then people will be employable at a higher wage.
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School education has little to do with 80% of employment opportunities out there. What they should be focusing on is vocational training.
 
ToxicBunny said:
I will be interested to see what ridiculous figure they come up with as a "minimum wage"
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Too high and it will simply result in retrenchments. That is if they even manage to implement such a thing.

I'm of the opinion that there shouldn't be a minimum wage at all (yes, I know this has many pitfalls and potential for abuse) if it would mean that our unemployment numbers could get closer to the ~5% mark. Support the people earning peanuts with grants like they currently are, but at least make them contribute to the growth of the economy through upping production at low cost to employers.
Perhaps this can be done through some of governmental subsidy to employers where the government pays for example 50% of the employee's wages instead of giving them grants for sitting on their butts all day? Just spit ballin' here.
 
I agree completely that it will be too high..

I'm just interested to see how dense these idiots actually can be.
 
Garson007 said:
Job creation is truly, really, a non-issue. Opportunity creation is something they should be focusing on.
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It seems to be for the ANC government ...

School education has little to do with 80% of employment opportunities out there. What they should be focusing on is vocational training.
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True. Not everyone can become managers and lawyers.
Germany identify which pupils will be better suited to manual work, or engineering, etc., and then place them in schools where they can hone those type of skills instead. They do get some flack for this system however, especially from the "Ausländer" who seems to be positioned for menial work by default, unless they can show exceptional skill in something.
 
Please don't then every year we'll have crippling strikes by COSATU to raise the wage by 20%
 
Garson007 said:
Job creation is truly, really, a non-issue. Opportunity creation is something they should be focusing on.
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Really? Creating jobs for the millions of unemployed is a non-issue? Rhetorical question, don't bother with a response; I can't argue stupid.
 
Slooth said:
Really? Creating jobs for the millions of unemployed is a non-issue? Rhetorical questions, don't bother with a response; I can't argue stupid.
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I think you're missing what he's saying. He's saying that if government were to create opportunities for new companies, job creation would be a by-product.
You can't synthetically create jobs (think North Korea with people doing the job of traffic lights) where they aren't truly required and expect the business to flourish as all efficiency would go out the window, meaning costs would be unreasonably high when compared to international competitors.
Creating a need for more businesses would result in genuine, healthy jobs being created.
 
This black and white thing is rediculous , I am white and i earn a good living but not because im white its because i went to school, studied, worked hard and saved my money then with my savings i started my own business now i reap the rewards. Any black man that has walked the same path as i have is just as succesful if not more , if i was black i would be 10 times wealthier and successful.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong here....

In order for wealth to be redistributed, one side has to lose and the other side gains.

In terms of business, which is what they are going to affect with this, they want the business to have less money and the workers to have more money.

So the company makes a loss because it's paying it's employees more, and the funds to keep it going comes out of the pockets of the wealthy, and therefore wealth is redistributed.

Surely that would lead the rich to just drop the business and looking for something or somewhere else that they will be able to make a profit?

And no, I am not ignoring those executives who get obscene salaries. Lowering those wouldn't be nearly enough to cover increased costs for millions of workers.
 
Greylor said:
Correct me if I'm wrong here....

In order for wealth to be redistributed, one side has to lose and the other side gains.

In terms of business, which is what they are going to affect with this, they want the business to have less money and the workers to have more money.

So the company makes a loss because it's paying it's employees more, and the funds to keep it going comes out of the pockets of the wealthy, and therefore wealth is redistributed.

Surely that would lead the rich to just drop the business and looking for something or somewhere else that they will be able to make a profit?

And no, I am not ignoring those executives who get obscene salaries. Lowering those wouldn't be nearly enough to cover increased costs for millions of workers.
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In a simplistic world, you are right...

and ultimately yes, that will happen if the government pushes the concept too far.
 
Wealth redistribution will just result in everyone being poor except for the politicians.

What we should be doing is creating wealth but that requires brains (good policies) and hard work (implementation of good policies) which is a foreign concept to the current ruling party.
 
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