THE MINIMUM WAGE PUZZLE: DOMESTIC WORKERS
By GEORGE CHOMBA
A STORY is told how some employers reduced the salaries for their domestic workers after hearing the Minister of Labour announce the minimum wage in the sector.
This was some 12 years ago as some employers thought then that a minimum wage was the alpha and omega.
But I knew this to be the opposite of the truth as I had come shortly from drinking from the wisdom of the International Labour Organisation in Turin , Italy.
After five months of distant learning Labour laws and social protection as specialisation, the ILO invited 15 journalists from across Africa on a fellowship for physical interation at their school in Italy.
We were asked to pick a field of specialisation and the domestic work sector became my cup of tea, back then in 2011.
Therefore, listening to the now Labour Minister Brenda Tambatamba announcing an increase in the minimum wage for domestic workers from K993.60 to K 1,300.00, triggers memories of more than a decade.
Although the Constitution of Zambia and the Industrial and Labour Relation Act provide for freedom of association and allow workers and employers to join and form unions, this does not apply to domestic workers in Zambia where a household only has one or two employees, a garden boy and the other, a maid inside the house, in upper class home.
According to labour laws in Zambia, there is supposed to be at least 50 workers at a single work place for a legal union to be formed. Unions are the only organisations allowed to negotiate salaries and conditions of service for their members.
Therefore in Zambia, domestic workers join an association for sharing best practices but which don’t have a strong hand on labour matters as regards, salaries and conditions of service.
For this reason, Government sets minimum wages for workers who are not unionised as they are considered vulnerable and left to the wishes of the employers, can easily be exploited.
The minimum wages are however for new entrants in employment and not old guards.
For example, domestic workers who have been on the job for donkey years and have raised children of their employers from nursery school to university can’t be paid at minimum wage.
According to Labour Laws, employees, including domestic workers, deserve an increase in salaries annually, even if it is a One Kwacha.
Therefore, although a minimum wage is static for a new employee, after a year, it changes with an increase unless the reasons for the lid pertains to industrial hiccups, justified and understood by all workers.
This however does not exclude workers, in this case domestic workers, from enjoying other conditions of service.
Domestic workers retain overtime, transport allowance for those who are not living in, 30 days leave pay, maternity leave for female domestic workers, the National Pensions Scheme Authority (NAPSA) contributions and other allowances enjoyed by other workers but often overlooked in Zambia.
In domestic work, according to the Domestic Workers Association of Zambia, the conditions of service on the part of the employee are overlooked because of desperation for the job. Employees only take their employers to the labour office when there is a dispute at termination of work.
The domestic worker would narrate years of toil and the labour officer would then read out the labour laws and find the employer in the wrong and that is the beginning of paying through the nose.
To avoid confusion and according to the Employment Code Act, an employer is expected to submit a copy of a job contract for a new employee to the labour office and this is expected to be the case when an employee and employer part company.
Hope the sad stories of a decade ago over the minimum wage won’t recur in domestic work and other vulnerable sectors following Labour Minister Brenda Tambatamba’s increased pay today.
In fact, as the true picture unfolds, whether all workers will be in employment.