Article: Pay increase for domestic workers

[Gaz{M}]

Please someone explain this:

"Someone working 27 hours a week or less" and then they say minimum "Rxxx.xx" per week or minimum "Rxxx.xx" per month?

So if they work 10 hours a week, I pay them +-R99. What does the "per week" or "per month' rate mean then? If it is just 27h x Rx.xx then thanks for saving me a calculation.

As usual, government laws make no sense. Can't they just say Rx per hour and be done?

 

[manesan]

This has to be a joke R9.85 an hour!??

Damn life is a b!tch, at the end of the month this equals to barely ~ R1,050

Wow...With the high prices on food, electricity at the end of the day, they probably don't save anything in the bank account because, they can't.

No wonder people are striking all over the places around here, it's not getting any cheaper to live.

High unemploment will decrease earnings for unskilled labour. The government knows that cant enforce higher wages as this will backfire when people fire their domestic helpers.

In the suburbs here in JHB most domestic workers take home substantially more than the minimum wage. I think this is to protect people in rural areas who have been known to be exploited.

 

[Nerfherder]

I must show my helper this.... she takes home double the minimum wage !


People say domestic helpers are a risk... ours got tied up and assaulted in our house once. I think the risk is on them

 

[w1z4rd]

My wife wants to import a domestic worker from her own country, she has no faith in the quality of work from the locals

 

[AniV]

Our domestic earns more than this. Has been since she started with us. Works from about 7.30 or 8am (depends on her transport, we have no issue what time she arrives) till about 2.30 or 3.30 depending on how much there is to do (or how much she decides to do). She is brilliant, doesn't steal anything, our house is always clean, she takes initiative, requires no direction, is logical and intelligent, and once a month she chooses a room in the house and does some organising (by her own initiative and choice). We don't even want her to iron the clothes, but she insisted.

We only see her for those few hours once a week, and we pay her R115. R85 for the work, and R30 for her transport fees (she travels a fair distance to us). I would love to be able to give her an increase, but my work didn't give me an increase so I can't give her one right now.

The minimum wage is ridiculous, but at least it is going up. When I was in highschool (many aeons ago) minimum wage was R7/hr and I earned that for several school holidays working at a video store and a biltong shop. It was crummy, and I was just trying to earn spending money. Not trying to survive and feed myself and my children and run a house on that rate!

Domestics are under-appreciated in our society.

 

[Other Pineapple Smurf]

So employing someone to do some housework while you work is "old South Africe"? Really? I'm not doing it to help the previously disadvantaged, I'm doing it so I come home to a clean home before the weekend and that my family and I have more time together and not wasted on chores that can be done by paying someone else to do it. Thats actually called stimulating the economy by the way as well.

+1

I've less than 2 hours a night to spend with my kids and I would rather do it in a clean house than spend those precious hours cleaning the house. The money we pay our Nanny supports 5 people who otherwise would go hungry each night.

 

[OrbitalDawn]

My wife wants to import a domestic worker from her own country, she has no faith in the quality of work from the locals

Where's your wife from?

 

[blunomore]

My domestic worker earns more than double that, PLUS meals PLUS tax money for every day she works, PLUS the costs I have to carry of everything she has broken in my house which I had to replace.

The fact that she is unschooled and earning this makes her top of her class.

 

[chrisc]

These are farm labourers wages, not for someone you trust in your house and is probably a friend. I showed this post to our Xhosa domestic and told her she was due for a decrease. You should have heard the language, it included the word "ANC" @!#@#!#! She reckons they are divorced from reality

 

[chrisc]

My wife wants to import a domestic worker from her own country, she has no faith in the quality of work from the locals

Can I apply? I have a 15 page CV

 

[Nicodeamus]

as we can obviously see, no domestic worker is going to work for this and no one is going to pay her this, hence the minimum wage law is just retarded.

 

[w1z4rd]

as we can obviously see, no domestic worker is going to work for this and no one is going to pay her this, hence the minimum wage law is just retarded.

I dont think thats true. They generally dont impose this type of thing unless there is a need for it. Those of us in the forum, (mostly white middle class people with internet connections), can afford to pay our maids more. We make up a very small percentage of the population as a whole.

 

[w1z4rd]

Can I apply? I have a 15 page CV

If you are Filipino sure. Will save me the costs of flying someone over in the future.

 

[Nicodeamus]

I dont think thats true. They generally dont impose this type of thing unless there is a need for it. Those of us in the forum, (mostly white middle class people with internet connections), can afford to pay our maids more. We make up a very small percentage of the population as a whole.

The problem is that if you increase the minimum wage then you're keeping people out of the working market. It comes down to choosing between having people work and having them unemployed. This R10 makes no difference to most of us, because we already pay far above it, if it made a difference to someone else who earns a lower income then this law can only cause more unemployment, I have a very big problem with legislation setting wages.

 

[w1z4rd]

The problem is that if you increase the minimum wage then you're keeping people out of the working market. It comes down to choosing between having people work and having them unemployed. This R10 makes no difference to most of us, because we already pay far above it, if it made a difference to someone else who earns a lower income then this law can only cause more unemployment, I have a very big problem with legislation setting wages.

If everyone played nice and fairly then we wouldnt need the rules, people dont, so we do.

 

[Nicodeamus]

If everyone played nice and fairly then we wouldnt need the rules, people dont, so we do.

Regardless of the intentions the consequences will remain the same with labour wages. Facts and history is on my side here

People must earn what the market demands, if they don't like that pay then they have no work or they go to a competitor.

 

[AniV]

I am not slamming the minimum wage law in any way though.
It is better that a minimum wage exists, instead of there not being any protection against exploitation of domestic workers.

If the minimum wage law did not exist, I assure you there would be people out there trying to pay their domestics as little as they could possibly get away with.

Yes, minimum wage is low. It's a paltry amount of money. Unfortunately most people mistake the "minimum" part for "recommended" or "average". Big difference! Just because the minimum is X does not mean you should only be paying your domestic that much. How would you lot like it if your company paid you minimum wage instead of what you're worth, based on your experience and qualifications?

It's a good thing that the Minimum Wage is going up. It should go up even more. It is still too low.

 

[Nicodeamus]

[video=youtube;2jv1Zae0sgo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jv1Zae0sgo[/video]

Black unemployment among their youth in the USA is mainly because of their minimum wage laws..

South Africa also has a minimum wage law and a large unemployed youth...

The only thing a minimum wage does is make unskilled labour which isn't worth much worth more, therefore it becomes more expensive to hire unskilled labour and people who normally could afford too do so, now can't.

 

[Nicodeamus]

If the minimum wage law did not exist, I assure you there would be people out there trying to pay their domestics as little as they could possibly get away with.

They wouldn't be able to pay less than what the market demands for their skill.

 

[AniV]

They wouldn't be able to pay less than what the market demands for their skill.

I dunno, people are so desperate for work that they would take anything they could get, even if it was a pittance. If there was no law saying you had to pay them at least X amount, we could have veritable slavery on our hands. Waiters and Waitresses are another example - restaurants love to not pay a working wage and leave them to survive on tips alone. The day the working wage rule for service industry was brought into effect was a great day.

I know it makes unskilled labour "worth more" but seriously, we're talking about a paltry amount here to begin with.
R9.85 an hour is still very little. It's essentially R10 for an hour of (probably hard physical) labour. I would starve very quickly if I only made R80 a day. It is necessary, but yes, we need to be careful that we don't push it up too high either. It is only a "minimum" after all, and is what we use to define the "living wage" amount. As things get more expensive, it makes sense that the minimum "living wage" would go up too.