Women Workers Win Major Victory on Minimum Wage

Workers at a household goods wholesaler in Johannesburg must be paid the minimum wage, not according to targets reached, the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration has ruled.

• A Johannesburg-based wholesaler has been ordered to pay five women workers who were being paid according to a target system.
• The Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration ruled that they must be paid the minimum wage, with back pay amounting to R137,000.
• The company, Crown Household, applied to the Labour Court to have the ruling put on ice, pending review. But the Labour Court refused.
• The workers’ attorneys have hailed this as a significant victory.

A group of five workers, all women, who were being paid according to daily production targets for making pot scourers, have won their case at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA). Their lawyers have called it a significant victory.

Commissioner Monice Roodt handed down her award on 22 December. She ordered Johannesburg-based Crown Household, a wholesaler of household products, to pay them what they should have earned in terms of minimum wage legislation. In total, their back pay amounted to R137,000.

Roodt also ordered that if the company did not pay them by 15 February 2025, interest would accrue on this amount.

Crown Household in early February lodged an urgent application with the Johannesburg Labour Court. The company wanted the CCMA award to be put on ice, pending a review application. But this was struck from the roll on 13 February and Crown Household was ordered to pay the costs of the failed application.

“The Labour Court ruling means that Crown Household must now pay the five women workers the money that they are owed in terms of the national minimum wage,” said the Casual Workers Advice Office (CWAO), which assisted the workers along with Lawyers for Human Rights. “This is back pay that covers the span of two years,” the CWAO said in a statement.

At the CCMA the women said they were employed as general workers on permanent contracts earning R200 a day. This was until April 2021, when they were paid on a “box system”, calculated on the number of boxes they processed a day.

They were set daily targets to meet. One said she would work from 7am to 4pm, that she would perform extra duties which would prevent her from meeting her targets. They were not given tea or lunch breaks and they were forced to take unpaid leave during the firm’s annual Christmas shut down.

The company’s representative Jabulile Malinga confirmed the employees were paid according to the daily targets and the “box system”.

Commissioner Roodt said it was clear from the evidence that they were not paid in accordance with the national minimum wage and ordered that they be back paid amounts ranging from R21,000 to R37,000 each.

However in early February, the company applied to the Labour Court to stay the award pending a review and setting aside of the CCMA order.

In her affidavit in that matter, Malinga, the firm’s office administrator, claimed the women were advised to work between 8am and 3pm, with an hour for lunch. Once they met their daily targets “they were welcome to leave for the day”.

When they had previously been paid an hourly rate, they had “taken advantage of this” and had gone on “go-slows” and “dragged their work for numerous hours”.

For this reason, the company had reverted to the target system, which was discussed with the workers before it was introduced, Malinga said.

She said the CCMA award should be reviewed because the commissioner had used “vague calculations” in determining what each worker was owed.

The workers had not presented evidence to substantiate their claims and the commissioner had not taken into account absenteeism, occasions when they would go on a go-slow, and that they did get paid for working some Saturdays.

In opposing the application, David Dickinson, attorney at Lawyers for Human Rights, said the application was not urgent. He said the so-called financial guarantee in favour of the workers, should the application fail, was nothing more than an IOU which could be easily circumvented by the company.

Johannesburg Labour Court Judge Molatelo Makhura struck the matter from the roll, saying it was not urgent, and ordered Crown Household to pay the costs of the application.

CWAO, in its statement, said that the “target” system had been designed to skirt the legally required practice of paying workers the national minimum wage.

“In one instance, a worker received only R500 as a salary, after having worked the entire month of December. Many of these women are the sole breadwinners in their household.

“This ruling also has positive implications for farm workers, who are often unlawfully paid less than the minimum wage (paid instead based on the amount of produce picked or packed),” the CWAO said.

Attorney Dickinson said: “The case illustrates the unfortunate practice by many companies to manipulate the law in order to avoid their legal responsibilities to pay the national minimum wage. Not only is this denying workers their basic rights, but it is also abusing the important role of our courts. The dismissal of the case powerfully illustrates that this malpractice is unacceptable in South Africa today.”

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