For interviews:
Tshepiso Mphofe of the Izwi Domestic Workers' Alliance on 071 840 7746
Nandi Vanqa-Mgijima of the Southern African Regional Network on 065 848 3196
Siphokazi Mvambi of the Simunye Workers' Forum on 078 295 9547
Patrick Mlaba of the Human Rights Defenders Advice Centre on 073 377 9249
The Campaign to Scrap the Labour Law Amendment Bills, a joint campaign of more than 40 unions, feminist movements, legal advice offices and social movements across South Africa, will protest on Thursday 16 October 2025 from 10am onwards outside the regional office of the Department of Employment and Labour, 47 Empire rd, Parktown
The Campaign will also hand over the written submission we have made on the proposed 2026 national minimum wage adjustment to Professor Imraan Valodia, the Chairperson of the National Minimum Wage Commission (NMW Commission).
The Campaign demands:
- That the NMW Commission must convene public hearings so that the Commission can hear directly from the public, workers and worker organisations what constitutes a decent living wage (not the poverty minimum wage of R28.79 per hour or the few cents it is likely to be increased by). We demand an end to the practice of a few elite commissioners sitting in a room and deciding how much workers can live on without any input!
- Workers are still stuck in the cycle of cheap labour. The National Minimum Wage has deepened the social and economic inequalities in South Africa by forcing the lowest paid workers to toil on a slavery level wage (R28.79 per hour). Despite the introduction of the NMW in 2019, South Africa remains the country with the highest income inequality in the world. This basic fact is reflected in the many social problems the country faces. Hunger, poverty, disease, crime, and want are all expressions of this basic fact. We demand that the NMW be calculated to lift those earning it out of poverty, which is supposed to be its purpose.
- The current National Minimum Wage of R28,79 is calculated on an hourly, and not monthly or weekly basis. Therefore it makes no sense because a worker cannot survive on R28.79 if they are casual and only paid for a few days or few hours a month. The government and the National Minimum Wage Commission of 'experts' know very well that hundreds of thousands of South Africa workers do not have stable working hours and nor do they have 40 hours per week of paid work. For example, in the rural areas, women seasonal farm workers are only employed for part of the year and do not earn enough to sustain themselves, especially during the off-season. Seasonal contracts are increasingly shorter, with many women employed for only a few weeks at a time. In the absence of a guaranteed monthly minimum wage or guaranteed 40 weekly hours, the minimum wage of R28,79 per hour has no real value for many workers. The Campaign demands a monthly minimum wage that will be paid as a minimum, no matter the number of hours worked!
- We demand a living wage, not a poverty minimum! Even if a worker is fortunate to work an 8-hour day for 20 days, the current NMW is no good! Even full-time, the maximum a minimum wage worker will earn is R4606,32 per month, based on the NMW of R28,79 per hour. The Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity, in August 2025, calculated the average cost of the monthly Household Food to be R5 380,62 for a family of four. Most households, for instance, comprise six or more people, not four
What this shows is that NMW of R4606,32 does not even cover the basic food requirements of a working-class household. In fact, if we take the national minimum wage of R4606,32 and divide it by the number of persons in a household of 4, then in August 2025, the NMW is R1151,58 per person. This is even below the upper-bound poverty line of R1 634 per person per month that the NMW Commission relies on to adjust the level of the NMW. Besides food, families need money to pay for other basic needs, like electricity, water, household domestic and personal hygiene products. According to the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity the total average cost of basic household domestic and personal hygiene products is R1 026,36 per month. The NMW does not even cover this basic human need of domestic and personal hygiene products, let alone the working class’s right to leisure and culture.
- We demand that bosses who continue to pay even less than the poverty minimum wage must be prosecuted. According to the 2025 Report of the NMW Commission, rates of non-compliance have increased to their highest level since the introduction of the NMW. Yet none of the bosses who refuse to pay the minimum wage ever face any legal consequences.
The Campaign calls on the National Minimum Wage Commission to hold public hearings ahead of the 2026 Review of the NMW. Public hearings would give workers the opportunity to make oral submissions which reflect their experiences. After all, workers know their own needs and what realities they face.
Category: PRESS RELEASE | SCRAP THE LABOUR AMENDMENT BILLS
