Minimum wage increase welcomed

Farmers have welcomed the Department of Labour’s minimum pay increase for farmworkers, but have raised concerns over the ongoing drought and food price increases.

Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant yesterday announced the increase for the farming and forestry sectors.

From March 1, the minimum wage increases will be adjusted as follows:

Hourly rate of R14.25;

Weekly of R641.32;

Monthly rate of R2778.80; and

A daily wage for a farmworker is R128.26, working nine hours a day.

Oliphant said the increase was set after extensive consultations and submissions received from employers and employees in both the farming and forestry sectors.

“These wage adjustments are to ensure that workers keep pace with the rising cost of living while boosting the purchasing power which benefits the economy,” Oliphant said.

She said to calculate minimum wage increases, the department applied the CPI (customer price index) excluding the rent paid by farm owners.

“This rate should be lower than what the department used to apply – which was CPI for quintile 1 (poor people) as published by Stats SA for a specific period.”

Agri SA head of labour relations Elize van der Westhuizen said the increase works out to about 6.6%.

“Given the reality of the drought, we are very thankful to the minister, who took into consideration these factors,” Van der Westhuizen said.

“The workers would have expected more but we hope this will assist workers.”

She said farmers should consider other options before retrenching workers if they were unable to afford the increases due to the drought.

“We know food prices in rural areas will be going up like in the cities. Better a lower increase than job losses,” Van der Westhuizen said.

“So we are thankful for increases for workers’ salaries, so they can afford food.”