NATIONAL NEWS - General secretary of the South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) Zwelinzima Vavi said it was an indictment for unions and formations representing the marginalised people that half of the country’s workforce earned below R3 400.

Speaking on Radio 702, Vavi said Saftu did not agree with the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) – the trade union he worked for previously – that the proposed R20 per hour national minimum wage was a good start and a step in the right direction.

Cosatu said on Tuesday it was disappointed that parliament and the government would not be ready to implement the long-delayed national minimum wage by May 1.

The national minimum wage envisages that farmworkers and domestic workers get a rate of R18 an hour and R15 an hour respectively and that this is raised to R20 an hour within two years of implementation.

Vavi said the fact that so many workers in the country earned a pittance was the reason why South Africa had become the most unequal society in the world.

“It speaks to the fact that over two decades of democracy we have seen, the beneficiaries of the economy have been the same people who were benefiting during the colonial and apartheid era,” Vavi said.

Read more on the Caxton publication, The Citizen.