Page 87 - Q&A

What can I do if my employer does not pay me
minimum wages?

January 2020
“I work as a cashier at a local supermarket. My employer keeps promising that
he will increase our hourly rates to the minimum wage of R20, but he never does
it and we are all still working for R15 an hour. We are fed up with the situation but
at the same cannot afford to lose our jobs. What can we do?”

The National Minimum Wage Act 9 of 2018 (“Wage Act”) became effective
from 1 January 2019 and applies to all employers, unless a sectoral determination
determines otherwise. But what happens if an employer does not pay the
prescribed minimum wage as determined by the Wage Act? Some options
available are to ask the Department of Labour for assistance or approach
the CCMA.

If the Department of Labour is approached with a complaint, the Department
has the right to designate a Labour Inspector who will inspect the employer’s
premises. During the inspection, the employer will be required to produce all
documents required to be kept by employers in terms of labour legislation
including information relating to the remuneration of employees. Should the
Labour Inspector have reasonable grounds to believe that there has been
non-compliance with any labour legislation, including the Wage Act, the
inspector can issue a compliance order giving the employer a specific time
frame within which they must rectify their non-compliance.
Should the employer fail to comply within the time period, the compliance Labour
order may be referred to the CCMA who will subsequently issue an arbitration
award requiring the employer to comply with the compliance order, if a CCMA
Commissioner is satisfied that the compliance order was served on the employer
and the employer has not, in the interim, referred a dispute concerning the
same compliance order to the CCMA.

Another option, at an employee’s disposal, is to directly approach the CCMA
as it has recently attained jurisdiction in terms of section 73A of the Basic
Conditions of Employment Act to deal with matters where an employee
is claiming payment of monies owed in terms of the Wage Act, a sectoral
determination or collective agreement.
The CCMA will schedule the dispute for conciliation where the Commissioner will
attempt to assist both parties to reach an amicable resolution. Should parties
fail to reach consensus, the Commissioner will issue a certificate certifying
that the dispute remains unresolved and that the matter must be arbitrated.
If there are grounds for non-compliance an arbitration award could then be
issued within 14 days of the conclusion of the arbitration proceedings wherein
an employer may be ordered to comply with the Wage Act and pay all
outstanding monies.

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