So.Africa: Analysts deride University of Cape Town's use of poverty measure to benchmark outsourced staff wages
'UCT's muddled minimum wage', 8 Dec 2014: In June 2013, the University of Cape Town instituted a review of outsourcing at the university...[which] advocated for meaningful increases in the minimum wage prescribed for outsourced workers...Yet the university's management rejected this recommendation in favour of keeping the minimum wage at a level which is well below the poverty line that it uses as a benchmark. This means that by UCT’s own measure it prescribes a poverty wage for the majority of the outsourced workers on its campus...The benchmark that management uses to assess the adequacy of its minimum wage is a Cost of Basic Needs (CoBN) measure...[which] is conceptually problematic...[as the] CoBN measure is a poverty line, and is not designed for wage-setting...It is even more disappointing that UCT has attempted to brand this wage as aligned with its commitment to “promote social justice and equity.” ...