This followed weeks of deadlock on the Consultative Labour Commission (CCT), the tripartite negotiating body between the government, the trade unions and the employers' associations.
The unions had called for a 17 per cent rise in the minimum wage, while the employers were not prepared to go beyond 13 per cent. Last week, when a further meeting of the CCT failed to break the impasse, the unions and the employers left it up to the government to take the final decision.
A 14 per cent rise brings the minimum wage from the current 1,443 meticais to 1,645 meticais a month (or 63.6 US dollars at current exchange rates).
For agricultural workers the rise is much lower at only 10 per cent. Their minimum wage rises from 1,024 to 1,126 meticais a month (or just 43.6 dollars). Thus the gap between industrial and agricultural wages is continuing to widen.
The unions had argued that the current minimum wage covers less than 50 per cent of the basic needs of a worker and his or her family.
It is only the minimum wage that is fixed by government decree. Wages above the minimum are determined by collective bargaining in each company.
As in previous years, the increase in the minimum wage is backdated to 1 April.
SOURCE: AIM
