Ethiopian investment Commission (EIC) urged the government to come out with minimum wage for workers to protect their interests. Presently, the Commission is working with the concerned ministry and other involved agencies to work out a minimum wage structure. Recently, there were media reports that garment workers in the country are being exploited and least paid in the world. This has attracted wide spread criticism from all over the country and even by non-governmental organizations and trade unions all over the world. The study by EIC is focusing on balancing the wage competiveness and well being of the workers. Wage structure should not be such that it makes compromises with the well-being of the workers. Admittedly, there is a spurt in job creation, particularly in the industrial parks in the recent days. Some estimates put that around 80,000 jobs were created. The EIC study will analyze whether the jobs were created just for its own sake or does it have a direct correlation with the well being of the workers. Basic objective, EIC says, is to see whether jobs are decent to improve the living conditions of the workers.
In the recent days, the privately-owned news portal Capital Ethiopia reported that the government had started talks to harmonize a national minimum wage. The minimum wage is lowest wage an employer should pay to the workers taking cognizance of cost of living and other parameters. In many countries, it is mandated. Significantly, most of the African countries have such mandatory benchmarks, which are increased from time to time depending on the cost of living. Ethiopia, so far, did not implement such a minimum wage structure. Nigeria, South Africa and Egypt have in the last few months enhanced the threshold wages. It is alleged that foreign employers operating in the textile industrial parks in Ethiopia pay less to the workers. They earn less than US$ 30 per month. As against this, Chinese garment workers earn US$340 a month, in Kenya they earn US$207 and in Bangladesh US$95. Trade unions in Ethiopia is, therefore, urging the government to evolve a new labor law to stipulate threshold minimum wage.
