Mozambique's Consultative Labour Commission, the tripartite negotiating body between the government, the trade unions and the employers' associations, met in Maputo on Wednesday, but failed to break the deadlock over this year's increase in the statutory minimum wage.
According to a trade union source, neither the unions nor the employers had shifted from their positions of April. The unions are calling for a 17 per cent rise in the minimum wage, while the employers are not prepared to go beyond 13 per cent.
The current industrial minimum wage is 1,443 meticais (55.7 US dollars at current exchange rates) a month, which the unions calculate covers less than 50 per cent of the basic needs of a worker and his or her family.
The agricultural minimum wage is even lower, at just 1.024 meticais a month.
17 per cent may sound like a huge rise - but it would only raise the minimum industrial wage to 1,687 meticais (65.1 dollars) a month. In absolute terms, the employers' offer is a minimum wage of 1,630 meticais (62.9 dollars) a month.
Given the impasse, it will now be up to the government to fix the minimum wage. Past experience suggests that the government will split the difference, which would lead to a 15 per cent rise, It is only the minimum wage that is fixed by government decree. Wages above the minimum are determined by collective bargaining in each company - but obviously such bargaining takes the rise in the minimum wage into consideration. The higher the rise in the minimum wage, the more workers paid above the minimum are likely to demand.
It is probably this that explains the intransigence of the employers, rather than the trivial difference of 57 meticais a month between the two proposals.
SOURCE: AIM
