No deadline for gazetting minimum wage

Only two written objections were received in response to a call for objections to the extension of the new minimum wages for security guards to the entire sector.“The ministry is considering all the responses to the objections. Once the ministry is satisfied, the minister will extend the collective agreement to the entire security industry,” labour ministry spokesperson Maria Hedimbi said.Hedimbi said the collective agreement, which was negotiated and signed by the Security Association of Namibia (SAN) and union representatives in December last year, was already “fully binding” for all SAN members, but not for the industry as a whole. The agreement will only be extended to the other parties in the industry once the minister is satisfied on a number of issues, she said.She did not say when the minister would finalise the process.In December, difficult negotiations came to an end when members of SAN and three unions announced that consensus had been reached and a national festive-season strike by 17 000 security guards averted.However, to date, only a handful of those security guards who had threatened to strike have received the 25% increases to N$8.75 an hour in January, as stipulated in that agreement, and fewer still the additional increase to N$10.00 as of July that was agreed on.This week, SAN's leadership stated more than 150 out of a total of 180 security companies still pay N$7.00 hourly minimum wages, with industry suspicions that even lower wages continue to be the norm with many “fly-by-night” operators.The industry is notoriously under-regulated, another issue SAN has emphasised needs to be resolved. The fact only an estimated 30 companies are paying the new minimal wages has caused unrest in the industry, with many accusing the ministry of not having pushed hard enough to ensure the wage agreement is extended timeously.SAN president Dries Kannemeyer this week said that “labour did not lead the parties after the agreement was reached, on what to do next. In the past 12 years, this has never happened before, that we should apply for the agreement to be extended”.Labour permanent secretary Bro-Mathew Shinguadja earlier this year told Namibian Sun that the delay in extending the agreement to the entire sector was not the ministry's fault.He said at the time that it was inexplicable how the “confusion” arose, because the legal process for gazetting new wages had been in place for decades.He said the parties should have begun the process of gazetting the wages in December already, but didn't. “They have been around in this industry. They know the process. The negligence is on their side,” he insisted.Kannemeyer said this week that a major issue is that many non-SAN security companies are unhappy that SAN negotiated with the unions on the new wages. But the association, he said, believed that “we negotiate for the industry and the unions for the labour force nationwide.”He said in order to ensure that the negotiating parties don't negotiate for a small percentage of the workforce and the industry, the ministry should create a wage commission to ensure fair practices are extended to the entire industry. Kannemeyer added that the labour ministry should also make sure the industry is properly policed and ensure they give back pay once the wages are extended.JANA-MARI SMITH a

No deadline for gazetting minimum wage

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Namibian Sun 2025-05-05

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No deadline for gazetting minimum wage

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Namibian Sun 2025-05-05

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