By April next year, Barbados could, for the first time, have a national minimum wage along with fixed amounts for different sectors.
Currently, the legal minimum wage of $6.25 per hour applies only to shop assistants.
The groundbreaking development was announced last night by Prime Minister Mia Mottley during a press conference at Ilaro Court after a resolution to the industrial impasse involving the Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU) and G4S Secure Solutions Barbados.
“I’m happy to report that on reflection we were able to find that common ground and it is that common ground that would benefit not only the workers of G4S but thousands of workers across Barbados. . . ,” she said.
“For more than a decade, the Barbados Workers’ Union in its conferences year after year would have called for an establishment of a national minimum wage and sectoral minimum wages to protect the most vulnerable in our society. Whether it was shop assistants who were already getting and domestics, to extend it to gas station workers, cleaners, agricultural workers, general workers, security workers, officers, guards, (and) watchmen.” (SB)
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