PM reaffirms minimum wage pledge

The Prime Minister on Tuesday doubled down on her pledge that Barbados will have a national minimum wage within three months of 2021, rebutting critics’ suggestions that the country is not ready for it and that an hourly rate increase could ruin small businesses.

Speaking in Parliament, she reflected on how the COVID-19 pandemic revealed the essential nature of services provided by workers who are either on a years-old minimum wage or not covered at all.

She declared: “It is incomprehensible, especially in this year when we know that persons who were responsible for packing shelves and taking money at the supermarket, cleaning the supermarket late at night in order to ensure that persons can go back the next morning.”

Mottley pointed out that the job of cleaning “took on a different meaning because of the pandemic”.

Said the PM: “We’re going to look at each in Barbados in the year 2020 in the month of December, ten months into a pandemic affecting all parts of the world and query whether there should be a national minimum wage?

“Come April 1st there will be a national minimum wage in Barbados.”

Assuring that her administration is prepared to listen to all objectors, she added: “What we cannot dispute is the need to protect those at the very bottom of the earning scale in this country, whose jobs are nevertheless critical.

“If the persons collecting the garbage or the persons literally cleaning, or the persons serving gas were not doing their jobs what would happen in the context of this pandemic?”

Joining the debate, Minister of Labour and Social Relations Colin Jordan said that service workers came in for much praise when their worth was proven during the early days of the pandemic.

But he said he was amazed that “three or four months after talking (about) how valuable particular categories of workers are… there are still people who are content to allow certain categories to be in a situation where they are barely able to survive.”

He said that only shop assistants and domestic workers are currently covered by a minimum wage at $6.25 an hour, which equates to $250 per week before NIS contributions are deducted if that individual worked 40 hours.

When compared to 2019, their take-home pay “represents a decrease in purchasing (power) of over 48 per cent”, he declared. (GA)