Tripartite committee to review minimum wage
KATHMANDU, MAR 27:
The government has formed a tripartite committee consisting of representatives from the privaste sector, government and trade unions to review minimum wages.
The government has been mulling a sector-wise minimum wage rate, however, the final course of action will be based on the committee’s recommendation. Presently, the minimum salary is the same across all sectors.
The private sector and trade unions affiliated to political parties have started pressuring the government to start work on revising the salary scale on schedule. As per labour laws, the minimum wage is reviewed every two years.
A week ago, the Ministry of Labour and Employment (MoLE) decided to form a committee with three representatives each from the government, private sector and trade unions. The government has asked the Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI) and trade unions to nominate representatives to the committee. However, employers and trade unions had begun pushing their own demands and agenda even before the committee was formed.
Employers said that the government should have formulated a set of criteria on which the minimum wage will be based before forming the committee. “Due to lack of certain standards, employers have been forced to accept the demands with regard to minimum wage revision previously,” said an FNCCI official.
Hansha Ram Pandey, director of the Employers’ Council at the FNCCI, said that factors like inflation, the country’s socio-economic condition, industrial productivity and consumer price index should be taken as standards while revising the minimum wage.
The pay scale was last revised in March 2011 and was hiked to Rs 6,200 per month and Rs 231 per day. Similarly, Rs 281 and Rs 158 have been fixed as the daily wage for agriculture workers and workers at tea estates respectively.
EC vice-chairman Manish Kumar Agrawal said that though the minimum wage revision is supposed to take place once in two years, employers have been forced to revise the minimum wage annually under different pretexts. According to him, workers demand a wage increment under various schemes like bi-yearly minimum wage revision, bi-yearly collective bargaining and annual grade increment in individual business firms.
“At a time when the industrial environment is deteriorating and the cost of production is rising, employers cannot afford such practices,” he added. “The government should ascertain which should be the only basis for revising the minimum wage.”
Trade unions, however, have their own concerns. Ram Deep Acharya, coordinator of the All Nepal Revolutionary Trade Union Federation (ANRTUF) which is affiliated to the Mohan Baidya-led CPN-Maoist, said that the minimum wage should be fixed at Rs 15,000 per month and Rs 700 per day.
“It has been so difficult for workers to sustain themselves due to soaring inflation,” he said. “In this condition, no worker can focus on productivity unless they are paid well.”
Bishnu Rimal, chairman of the Nepal Trade Union Congress, said that a minimum wage revision would not be enough until the government implements social security schemes as promised before. The government has pledged to introduce a number of schemes to benefit workers, and has been collecting contributions amounting to 1 percent of their salaries for its Social Security Fund from the last five years. He also called for policy certainty while revising the minimum wage.
Source: The Kathmandu Post
