Cabinet approves minimum wage bill

[Nicodeamus]

You are correct, and like Mila mentioned above, we did not take our decision lightly. Our domestic worker was employed with our family for more than 15 years. There were just too many laws coming out that would make it too costly, difficult and in cases impossible to scale down should we ever get into financial difficulties. Over and above that, we feared a time when you get a government that simply comes out stating minimum wage would be R10k and that is that. So, for us it never was about the money we paid, but the laws. I am glad we took the decision, although it negatively affected our domestic worker. And, somehow, I do not think we are the only people who took actions for the same reasons.

My mother had a small laundry shop in Pretoria, she had 5 women working for her basically doing ironing and washing. After running into to many UIF and CCMA issues that took up more of her time (despite winning each issue), she sold the company. 1 year later e the owner got everybody on part time contracts and last we heard they decided to close the shop. This was a profitable small company, it simply was too frustrating to work under that environmental.

My suspension is that the small scale plumbers, carpenters etc will be massively affected by these laws. The people creating the laws simply dont suffer their consequences .

 

[noxibox]

You have the same issue in France, large companies do not hire full time employees anymore, they make use of «*consultants*», which is essentially a form of labour broking or they stick you onto a temporary contract. This is also applicable to professionals like engineers. It is simply to costly to get rid of people.

The simple principle is that if you can’t fire then you can’t hire.

Typical that businesses want loyalty from their employees, but are unwilling to show any in return. You can however fire people in South Africa when you genuinely have valid grounds and follow proper procedures.

1 year later e the owner got everybody on part time contracts and last we heard they decided to close the shop. This was a profitable small company, it simply was too frustrating to work under that environmental.

I have to wonder what the new owner was up to. Sounds like a fairly typical exploitation tactic which itself was probably ultimately destructive to the business.

South Africa's labour laws may sometimes be a bit skewed in favour of employees, but businesses over and over prove the necessity of having the government keeping them in check.

 

[noxibox]

funnily enough socialist countries also tend to see all these things as good things until they run out of other people's money to piss away ... see Venezuela for reference

Well if it involves other people's money then there are only socialist countries on earth.

 

[Nicodeamus]

Typical that businesses want loyalty from their employees, but are unwilling to show any in return. You can however fire people in South Africa when you genuinely have valid grounds and follow proper procedures.

I am all for that if the business can afford it, the problem is that only big companies can do so, it screws the small guys over.

I have to wonder what the new owner was up to. Sounds like a fairly typical exploitation tactic which itself was probably ultimately destructive to the business.

no idea really, chances are that he managed it all to the ground, but the CCMA cases are really annoying and costly for small companies

South Africa's labour laws may sometimes be a bit skewed in favour of employees, but businesses over and over prove the necessity of having the government keeping them in check.

Not really, government keeping them in check means that the regulators are running away absurdities. If your boss treats you badly, look for work somewhere else. I dont need a government to tell me that it is bad to work on a sugar farm.