Zambias præsident har indfriet sit valgløfte om at hæve mindstelønnen betragteligt for at gavne menigmand i det sydafrikanske kobberland – fattigfolk drømmer nu om et nyt og bedre liv.
LUSAKA, 10 August 2012 (IRIN): “This is like a prayer answered for me. Our government has really done well to remember us, to think about us,” Priscilla Mwemba, a domestic worker (hushjælp) in the Zambian capital Lusaka, told IRIN after the government imposed non-negotiable (obligatorisk) minimum wage scales that will more than triple (tredoble) the 22 year old’s monthly salary.
“Since I am a resident maid, I am paid 150.000 Kwacha (ca. 180 DKR) per month. My friends [other domestic workers] who report for work every morning and knock off (holder fyraften) in the evening receive up to 250.000 Kwacha (ca. 300 DKR) sometimes. Madam says I eat her food, use her soap, water and electricity. So she cannot pay me like my friends.”
The labour minister and former trade unionist Fackson Shamenda announced in July 2012 the minimum monthly wage for domestic workers would increase from 30 to about 105 US dollar (fra 180 til 630 DKR).
And general workers – such as shop assistants, farmworkers, sweepers (gadefejere) and construction workers – would see their minimum monthly pay packets rise from 50 to 220 dollar (300 til godt 1.300 DKR).
This fulfills President Michael Sata’s 2011 election promise of “more money in the pockets” of workers.
The minimum wage scales came into effect on 4 July 2012.
The Zambian government is encouraging employees to report employers failing to comply with the law to the police to face prosecution and businesses are being threatened with deregistering for any violation of the minimum wage regulations.
Mwemba left school at 13, as her mother was unable to afford the fees (skolepenge), and is one of an estimated 50.000 domestic workers in Lusaka.
“I am not educated. I can not find any job elsewhere. This is the only job I can do. Good jobs are for you people who are educated,” she said.
Her day begins at four o`clock in the morning at the Lusaka informal settlement of Chawama, preparing breakfast for the family of five, bathing the three children before taking them to school, and then she cleans, washes clothes, fetches water and cooks.
“Madam only helps me with preparing her husband’s breakfast in the morning. Otherwise I do everything”, she explains.
“I go home [to Kanyama, an informal centre about 15 km away] for a weekend once a month, when I am paid. I give 100.000 Kwacha (120 DKR) to my mother, then I use 50.000 Kwacha (60 DKR) to buy things like lotions or salaula [second-hand clothes] and shoes.”
Dreaming of a new life
Mwemba has not yet been paid her promised increase. But she has begun dreaming of a new life, including renting a one-room flat to share with her mother.
“I hope she willnot change her mind. I know that even 500.000 Kwacha (600 DKR) will not be enough because I support my mother and [two] siblings…But it is still better than the 150.000 Kwacha (180 DKR) I have been getting for two years.”
Oscar Cheupe, president of the about 3.000-strong United House and Domestic Workers Union of Zambia (UHDWUZ), told the daily Zambian newspaper, the Daily Mail, on 3 August:
“We are happy that most of our members have already started getting new salaries as a result of the revised minimum wage. There are however a few employers who have requested the union to give them up to next month to effect the revised minimum wage.”
About 64 percent of Zambia’s 13 million inhabitants live on a dollar (ca. seks DKR) or less a day, and about 500.000 people are employed by the formal sector, according to the country’s Central Statistical Office.
The new minimum wage directive has been greeted with excitement by workers and warnings of retrenchments by employers.
Retrenchments (indskrænkninger)
Læs videre på
http://www.irinnews.org/Report/96073/ZAMBIA-Dreaming-of-a-minimum-wage
Se også telegrammet
http://www.u-landsnyt.dk/nyhed/05-08-12/zambia-arbejdere-sl-r-deres-kinesiske-minechef-ihj
