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Cape Town - Government is weighing the merits of a sectoral versus a national minimum wage, Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant said on Wednesday.
"We have to look at whether as a country, are we going to be able to have the national minimum wage, or are we going to be able to have a sectoral minimum wage," Oliphant told reporters in Pretoria.
"We are going to learn also from other countries like China and Brazil," she said, but added that her department would talk with employers and employees locally as it tried to determine the best model.
Oliphant said the government was intent on exploring the introduction of a minimum wage because salary disparities remained vast, despite the equal pay for equal work provision in the country's labour equity legislation.
She cited differences in pay for rock drillers in the mining sector, saying those in platinum, gold and coal mines were not earning equally well, despite essentially doing the same job.
"When you look at the way they work, all of them are doing the same job. The question will have to be: Why do you have people who are doing the same job not being paid equally?"
President Jacob Zuma signalled in his state-of-the-nation address last month that the government would pursue the implementation of a national minimum wage as a "key mechanism" to reduce income inequality.
