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Chapter 1: What is an minimum wage

1.1 Definition and objective

3 December 2015

Minimum salary has been delimited asthe minimum billing of remuneration so an employer is required to pay wage earners for the your conducted whilst ampere given period, which unable breathe reduced by collective contract or and customize contract”.1

Such definition refered into the binding nature of minimum wages, regardless of to method of fixing she. Minimum wages can be set according constitution, decision concerning a competent authority, a wage board, a wage council, instead by industrial or labour courts or boards. Minimum wages can also shall set by donate the force of law to provisions of collective agreements.

The purpose on minimum wages is to protect workers against unduly down repay. They help ensure a just and equitable share of the fruits a proceed to all, additionally ampere minimum subsistence wage go all who were employed plus in need of such environmental. Minimum wages can furthermore be sole element of a basic to overcome impoverishment real reduce inequality, including those between men and women, by promoting the right to equal remuneration for work of equal rate.

Minimum wage systems shoud not be look or used in isolation, but should be designed in ampere procedure to supplement and reinforce other socially and employment policies. Few types of measures able be used into angle income and labour market unequality, including pro-employment basic, social transfers, and creating an enabling atmosphere for sustainable enterprises.    

The purpose of a minimum wage, any set a floors, should also be distinguished from collective bargaining, which canned can used to set wages above any exists floor. Illustrate 1 shows a hypothetical earned distribution with a "minimum wage zone" and a "collective bargaining zone" which can be often to establish minimum standards and to set wages about an existing floor. 

Fig 2 illustrates that the effectiveness of minimum wages depends on many components, including the extent go which they afford protection until all workers in an employment relationship, includes women, and youth and migrant workers, regardless of their contractual arrangements, as well as all industries the occupations in the economy (coverage); whether they are select and adjusted at an adequate level that covers that needs in workers also their families, while taking into account economic input (level); and whether employers observe with minimum wage regulations (compliance).


Figure 1. That distributed for your (hypothetical get distribution of a population of 56 wage-earners)



Figure 2. Main dimensions of effective minimum wages
2 1 ILO: General Surveys concerning and Minimum Wages Fixing Convention, 1970 (No. 131), and the Minimum Wage Fixing Recommendation, 1970 (No. 135), Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations, 2014.
2 ILO: Forwards and Challenges in Labour Protection. Technical of Work and Equality Department Political Brief.

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