Namibian labour market income horribly skewed

A NAMIBIAN cleaner who works for an outsourced cleaning company generally has to work about 160 months (13 years) to earn what the same company’s CEO earns in a single month.

This was just one of the revelations made by Labour Resource and Research Institute (LaRRI) head of research Herbert Jauch this week during a national symposium on productivity and employment, held in Windhoek. In the same vein, Jauch said, the average non-executive director who attends between two and four meetings a year still earns four times as much as ordinary fulltime workers do in a year.”In other words, the sitting allowance of a non-executive director for one meeting is equivalent to a worker’s salary for a year.Such levels of income inequality certainly cannot serve as motivation for higher levels of labour productivity,” Jauch said.His findings were based on an upcoming wage development report by LaRRI.Jauch argued that Namibian employers too easily revert to the “productivity card”, telling workers who demand better wages and working conditions that they need to step up production before these demands can be met.The huge difference in payment of employees has created a highly fragmented labour market, Jauch said, consisting of three main categories.The first of these is a small elite who enjoy a standard of living comparable to first-world countries, while the second is a “significant group of formal-sector workers” with permanent jobs who earn low to middle incomes.The last group, he said, is made up of a growing number of casual, informal and unemployed workers, who he said “are the victims of a labour market that virtually forces them to accept any job under any conditions.”This last group, he said, most often has to endure the criticism of not being productive enough.”Their personal circumstances as well as developments over the past few years made them extremely vulnerable.They are often not covered by trade unions’ recognition agreements.They are regarded as easily replaceable by employers.They are not provided with opportunities to improve their education and skills, and they are usually the first to be fired in case of restructuring and downsizing,” Jauch said.Namibian employers are yet to adapt an attitude of regarding their workers as important partners, rather than merely “production inputs whose costs have to be kept low as possible,” he said.Examples of employers Jauch named as bad examples were the Malaysian company Ramatex and the various labour-hire companies currently operating in the country.Ramatex, he said, had always maintained that Namibian workers were not productive enough and that the company was making losses, but would never provide statements to validate this claim.LaRRI thus conducted its own investigation into the matter, he said, which revealed that wages accounted for only 11 to 16 per cent of Ramatex’s export earnings.”As Ramatex pays no taxes and pays subsidised rates for water and electricity, it is hard to believe that the company’s Namibian operations were running at a loss,” Jauch said.Workers, Jauch concluded, need to respected, their concerns taken seriously, and they must have a voice in debates on productivity.Currently, he said, when employers talk of production, workers are less enthusiastic to participate because this is seen as a weapon against their demands.”They experience productivity arguments as being against their own interests and in favour of employers,” he said.In the same vein, Jauch said, the average non-executive director who attends between two and four meetings a year still earns four times as much as ordinary fulltime workers do in a year.”In other words, the sitting allowance of a non-executive director for one meeting is equivalent to a worker’s salary for a year.Such levels of income inequality certainly cannot serve as motivation for higher levels of labour productivity,” Jauch said.His findings were based on an upcoming wage development report by LaRRI.Jauch argued that Namibian employers too easily revert to the “productivity card”, telling workers who demand better wages and working conditions that they need to step up production before these demands can be met.The huge difference in payment of employees has created a highly fragmented labour market, Jauch said, consisting of three main categories.The first of these is a small elite who enjoy a standard of living comparable to first-world countries, while the second is a “significant group of formal-sector workers” with permanent jobs who earn low to middle incomes.The last group, he said, is made up of a growing number of casual, informal and unemployed workers, who he said “are the victims of a labour market that virtually forces them to accept any job under any conditions.” This last group, he said, most often has to endure the criticism of not being productive enough.”Their personal circumstances as well as developments over the past few years made them extremely vulnerable.They are often not covered by trade unions’ recognition agreements.They are regarded as easily replaceable by employers.They are not provided with opportunities to improve their education and skills, and they are usually the first to be fired in case of restructuring and downsizing,” Jauch said.Namibian employers are yet to adapt an attitude of regarding their workers as important partners, rather than merely “production inputs whose costs have to be kept low as possible,” he said.Examples of employers Jauch named as bad examples were the Malaysian company Ramatex and the various labour-hire companies currently operating in the country.Ramatex, he said, had always maintained that Namibian workers were not productive enough and that the company was making losses, but would never provide statements to validate this claim.LaRRI thus conducted its own investigation into the matter, he said, which revealed that wages accounted for only 11 to 16 per cent of Ramatex’s export earnings.”As Ramatex pays no taxes and pays subsidised rates for water and electricity, it is hard to believe that the company’s Namibian operations were running at a loss,” Jauch said.Workers, Jauch concluded, need to respected, their concerns taken seriously, and they must have a voice in debates on productivity.Currently, he said, when employers talk of production, workers are less enthusiastic to participate because this is seen as a weapon against their demands.”They experience productivity arguments as being against their own interests and in favour of employers,” he said.