Wage calculator

Our wage calculator will help you with wage negotiations. The calculator will tell you how much a percentage increase is an amount of money. The calculator will help you understand the effect of inflation on the wage increase.

AGREED

Agreements Database: Find collective agreements, recognition agreements and global framework agreements.

MNC

Multinational Corporations Database: Find financial, operational and governance information of 91 South African MNCs.

AWARD

Actual Wage Rates Database: Find wages and conditions of employment across various industries.

Decent Standard of Living Measure

The median income of people who have all 21 socially perceived necessities is R7 911 per person, per month (September 2021). This is the amount associated with a decent standard of living per person in South Africa.

The National Minimum Wage is R21.69 per hour

About six million workers in sectors that generally have low levels of wages and organisation benefit from the national minimum wage. Snapshot of 2021 increases: Farmworkers (R21.69); Domestic workers (R19.09); EPWP workers (R11.93).

Inflation Monitor | August 2021

Wages need to adjust with inflation otherwise their real value decreases over time. Featured in LRS Inflation Monitor: CPI; inflation rate by expenditure and province; transport price index; and administered price index.

Trade union collective bargaining strategies for 2021

Learn the indicators that will help you enter into bargaining processes as an informed role player in 2021:

minimum wage and settlement trends
the impact of Covid-19 on the economy and collective bargaining
the 2021 bargaining round
bargaining for the future.

LRS Bargaining monitor | 2021

Unions managed to secure wage settlements above the inflation rate from January to June 2021. The median minimum wages negotiated are higher than the national minimum wage.

Bargaining Benchmarks | September 2021

This resource is for the trade union negotiator. Know our series of benchmarks that will help you to enter bargaining processes as an informed role player.

Trade union bargaining strategies for 2021

Featured: minimum wage and settlement trends; the impact of Covid-19 and collective bargaining; the 2021 bargaining round; and bargaining for the future.

Labour Research Service – Over 30 Years Working for Workers

National Minimum Wage Campaign.

Know more about our history participating in the minimum wage debate in South Africa.

Art of negotiation

How to negotiate during difficult times

The company which you are bargaining with claims that it’s in a genuine crisis. Management has proposed a wage freeze. They say that the alternative is 120 retrenchments. The aim of your commission is to put together a counter-proposal. How can you interrogate the company’s claim that it’s in a crisis? If the claims are true, what can you get for exercising wage restraint? What kind of “non-cash” demands could you bring into this bargaining situation? Let’s learn the suggestions put forward by our focus group of trade union negotiators.

Bargaining for gender equity

Collective bargaining is one of the tools for promoting equality in the workplace. The three-step approach for gender equity bargaining:

Step 1: Do research and identify the issues for women and who is affected.

Step 2: Determine the critical issues for consideration in your bargaining agenda.

Step 3: Bargain and implement.

Get your copy of Bargaining for Gender Equity Booklet for more tips.

Decent Standard of Living (DSL) research

An introduction to the Decent Standard of Living threshold and the Decent Standard of Living Index

What you will learn:

This is what you need to live a decent life, a life without struggle.

There are more ways to live a decent life than just through money

Applying a DSL measure towards a coherent policy design

LRS model agreement

Bring to the table win-win survival strategies to ensure proactive domination. At the end of the day, going forward, a new normal that has evolved from generation X is on the runway heading towards a streamlined cloud solution. User generated content in real-time will have multiple touchpoints for offshoring. Capitalize on low hanging fruit to identify a ballpark value added activity to beta test. Override the digital divide.