Minimum wage comes nowhere near meeting basic needs

Maputo, 2 May (AIM) – The monthly minimum wage in Mozambique, even after the increases approved this week by the government, only covers 11 per cent of the basic needs of the average household, according to the calculations made by the country’s main trade union federation, the OTM (Mozambican Workers’ Organisation).

There is no longer a single national minimum wage. Instead, the minimum wage is negotiated by sector and sub-sector. This means there are now 18 separate minimum wages.

The increases announced on Tuesday range from 3.13 per cent (for fishery workers on Lake Cahora Bassa) to 18 per cent (for employees of large scale mining companies).

The new minimum wages, backdated to 1 April, were the result of consensus achieved at the Labour Consultative Commission (CCT), the tripartite negotiating forum between the government, the trade unions and the employers’ associations.

Speaking on Wednesday, during the Maputo celebrations of international workers’ day, OTM representative Damiao Simango said that even the highest of the new minimum wages comes nowhere near meeting the cost of a family’s basic requirements.

“In our country, the lowest minimum wage is about 5,000 meticais (78 US dollars) a month, while the highest is about 18,000 meticais. But the basic monthly requirements for a family cost 40,175 meticais. This means that the lowest minimum wage covers only 11 per cent of basic needs, and the highest covers 40 per cent)”, said Simango.

With the current cost of living, the wage increases announced had frustrated workers’ expectations, he added. Nonetheless, Simango believed that the increases in the minimum wage were what it had been possible to obtain at the negotiating table.

He promised that the unions will continue to fight for higher minimum wages at the annual negotiations in the CCT.

But the government announcement only covers the minimum wage. No employer may legally pay his workers less than this – but there is nothing to stop him from paying more.

Wages above the minimum are negotiated through collective bargaining in each workplace. Simango encouraged trade union committees to negotiate wages higher than the minimum in order to improve workers’ living conditions.

The minimum wage, he said, is just a cushion to protect the poorest groups of workers.

(AIM)

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