‘Imminent’ minimum wage rise ‘separate’ from 2026 indexation plan

An immediate increase in the national minimum wage will take effect by mid-year, Minister of Labour Colin Jordan confirmed on Wednesday, clarifying that this rise is entirely separate from the previously announced two per cent annual indexation scheduled to begin in January 2026.

The disclosure came during his contribution in the House of Assembly on Wednesday to the debate on the government’s Financial Statement and Budgetary Proposals presented by Minister in the Ministry of Finance Ryan Straughn on Monday.

Straughn had informed the House that effective January 1, 2026, the government will introduce an automatic increase in the national minimum wage of two per cent annually, in line with movements in the maximum insurable earnings ceiling between reviews conducted every three years by the Ministry of Labour and the Minimum Wage Board. 

“This way, it gives those persons earning the lowest income more timely disposable income to keep some pace with inflation,” he said.

But Jordan clarified that the two per cent relates to indexation of the minimum wage and not to the national rate.

“What was announced on Monday, and I need to say this for clarity: The Minimum Wage Board, as we speak, is meeting and discussing a paper that will see an increase in the national minimum wage. This is not to do with the two per cent. That’s from 2026. In this year, before we reach the middle of the year, there will be an increase in the national minimum wage,” the labour minister said.

“So that the myth flying around that we are moving only two per cent is exactly what I have said, a myth. The Minimum Wage Board is in discussion… it is a tripartite board; workers, employers and government representatives; and they are right now discussing a proposal for the increase in the minimum wage from the current $8.50 general rate and sectoral $9.25. That increase will come into effect this calendar year.”

With regard to indexation, he said the board is also addressing that issue and will be conferring with the Ministry of Finance on that matter.

Jordan also gave attention to the Employment Rights Tribunal (ERT), which is in the process of being reconstituted after its tenure expired at the end of last year.

“We are awaiting at this point nominations from one of the social partners. Once we have those and they are committed—we expect to have those in the next week or so—once we have those persons, we will go to Cabinet and the tribunal will be reconstituted; and so, we will be able to move forward,” he said.

Jordan, who is one of government’s representatives on Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC), also responded to claims by Opposition Leader Ralph Thorne that government MPs had been preventing him as PAC chair from convening meetings as well as frustrating his efforts to investigate certain issues.

Though stating he had missed “very few” meetings, Jordan insisted that he was present most of the time.

He also denied any government representatives were “stopping” meetings or thwarting investigations.

“The members of the Public Accounts Committee from the government side have never stopped the Public Accounts Committee from meeting. We have turned up at every meeting of the Public Accounts Committee,” Jordan said.

He recalled that when Prime Minister Mia Mottley was chair of PAC, members of the then Democratic Labour Party administration did not turn up for meetings.

Jordan described Thorne as a spoilt child who gets upset during meetings when he doesn’t get his way.

“He has not called any meetings recently,” he said, “because he is upset that he cannot have his way. And you know what the way is? There is an agenda for the Public Accounts Committee. Work is ongoing in the Public Accounts Committee, and he wants, hot and sweaty, to say: ‘Well, we done wid dat, we want to deal with this only.’ And we would say simply to the chair, with all due respect, we are halfway through a number of these things; you need to complete these, and then we go on to those that you have put on the agenda. That is what the Public Accounts Committee is guilty of. We are guilty of wanting to complete the work that we have started.”  (EJ)