Mottley warns against excessive profits at workers’ expense

Prime Minister Mia Mottley cautioned that businesses which pursue high profits by short-changing workers risk undermining productivity, customer service and their own long-term viability.

“Fast money that is not sustainable is not a successful business,” she said on Tuesday, as the House of Assembly debated the Protection of Wages Bill. Attempts to squeeze every dollar from workers could eventually lead to dissatisfaction and “malicious compliance”, she said.

She criticised what she described as exploitative workplace practices, arguing that workers’ treatment directly affects productivity, customer service and the long-term success of businesses.

In comments that vaguely hinted at allegations of mistreatment of migrant workers by construction and engineering company JADA Group, Mottley said businesses must recognise the value of employees and the role they play in determining whether a company succeeds.

“If that employee does not treat that customer appropriately or with a sense of decorum or with a sense of joy and pleasure, it doesn’t just simply affect gratuities and tips – it affects future business.”

The prime minister said employers who fail to provide proper working conditions ultimately hurt their own operations.

“We cannot have 60, 70, 80 men living in an area of temporary ramshackle accommodation, with no provision to clean for them, no provision to cook for them, and making them work beyond the 40 hours of a week that the majority of us would normally work without requisite compensation for overtime.”

The prime minister made an impromptu inspection of the Jada jobsite after the Barbados Workers Union – led by government backbench MP Toni Moore – accused the company of subjecting workers to poor living and working conditions.

Mottley said that workers who are properly treated and supported are more likely to achieve higher productivity, which can improve a company’s competitiveness:

“If treated properly, if fed properly, [workers] will give you a level of productivity in most instances that will make the difference between how competitive your business is or not.”

She urged businesses to move away from the idea that large profits can only be achieved by cutting costs at workers’ expense.

“We have to move away from this thing of believing that companies can only make egregious profits, excess profits, large profits on the backs of human beings.”

Mottley warned that companies focused only on extracting maximum returns from employees risk damaging their own future.

(SB)