All sectors should set the minimum wage at US$150 a month, payable in local currency at the prevailing official rate or in foreign currency, Cabinet agreed when it approved the report from Tripartite Negotiating Forum (TNF) meeting.
This minimum wage was recommended as a guide. Normally the minimum is paid to a recently hired unskilled worker and every addition to skill and every addition to experience normally pushes staff up a ladder in most national employment councils and their equivalent.
TNF is a platform where employers, Government and trade unions come together to discuss issues pertaining to salaries, wages and other working conditions in the national interest.
Government itself now pays significantly better than the guide, and the TNF is now looking for private sector buy-in as a way of improving people’s lives as espoused by President Mnangagwa’s vision of leaving no one behind.
Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister Monica Mutsvangwa said after yesterday’s Cabinet meeting that Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister Paul Mavima updated Cabinet on the outcome of the TNF meeting and the recommendations made.
Besides the setting of a guide for the lowest run minimum wage the TNF wanted to see ratified the 2019 convention on violence and harassment at the workplace, to combat these ills in the work world, and the promotional framework for occupational safety and health convention, to upgrade these aspects.
She said Cabinet noted the updates on the labour law reform, operationalisation of the TNF and the report of the TNF Technical Committee.
Minister Mutsvangwa said along with the minimum wage guide the TNF wanted Government to consider tax cuts on wages and salaries to increase disposable incomes, and fair distribution of incomes should become a policy and planning imperative.
Cabinet discussed and noted areas of currency stabilisation which included:
“That the RBZ will continue to perform its statutory functions such as a central bank which inter alia include banker to government, lender of last resort, protection of depositors’ deposits, regulation of banks, formulation of monetary policy including administration of frameworks for fixing exchange rates and interest rates;
“That the foreign currency available will continue to be auctioned, and all winning bids should be settled within two days from the date of the auction in line with internationally accepted practices;
“Government will continue to institute and strengthen measures aimed at bringing confidence and stability in the economy and eliminating arbitrage opportunities through manipulation of the exchange rate.
“Pertaining to price stabilisation, Cabinet agreed that the tripartite partners should work towards conclusion of a social contract or pact to help promote the stabilisation of the economy.
“Social contract should be the tool for moderating increases in prices of goods and services as well as restraining increases in salaries and wages to counter inflationary measures,” said Minister Mutsvangwa. – Herald
