Mozambique: No minimum wage negotiations until July

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Mozambique: No minimum wage negotiations until July

7:02 CAT | 31 Mar 2021

File photo: Folha de Maputo

Negotiations on an increase in the Mozambican minimum wage will not resume until June, according to a report in Tuesday’s issue of the independent newssheet “Mediafax”.

The General Secretary of the main trade union confederation, the OTM, Alexandre Munguambe, told the paper that the meeting is being held at the request of the unions. June was chosen because it is believed that by then all sectors of the economy will have resumed their activities, after the interruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Munguambe recognized that companies have been seriously affected by the Covid-19 crisis, but said that the lack of any wage increase since April 2019 has worsened the already difficult living conditions of the country’s workers. He thought it reasonable to start the negotiations from the basis of a six per cent increase in the minimum wages.

He admitted that six per cent would be very little for those who are only earning a pittance, “but it would be something to alleviate the pressure on the workers”.

“We recognise that the economic performance since last year has been negative, but that doesn’t mean that all companies had negative performance”, said Munguambe. “There are sectors that were not affected, such as agriculture. So we think that now is the time to start thinking about wage adjustments”.

Increases in the minimum wage are negotiated every year in the Labour Consultative Commission (CCT), a tripartite forum between the government, the trade unions, and the employers’ representatives.

The 2020 negotiations began on 18 March, but the Covid-19 pandemic was used as an excuse to stop the talks – which means that there would be no rise in the minimum wage until further notice. In previous years, an increase in the minimum wage was usually announced in late April and was always backdated to 1 April.

There is no national minimum wage. Instead wages are negotiated sector by sector. The OTM calculated in 2019 that to provide a basic basket of goods and services for an average family, a minimum wage of 19,600 meticais (297 US dollars, at the exchange rate of the time) would have been needed. In 2020, the cost for the same basket, according to the OTM, would be 22,700 meticais.

The monthly minimum wages agreed in 2019 came nowhere near 19,600 meticais. They ranged from 4,266 meticais for fishery workers on Lake Cahora Bassa in Tete province, to 12,760 meticais for workers in banking, insurance and other financial services. The minimum wage for public sector workers was just 4,467 meticais a month.

The CCT only discusses the minimum wage. Anything above the minimum is a matter for collective bargaining between unions and employers in each company or workplace.

The six per cent rise suggested by Munguambe would not compensate for the inflation from 2019 to 2021, and would amount to a cut in real wages.

Source: AIM