There will be no delay in the promised national minimum wage increase.
Minister of Labour, Social Security and Third Sector Colin Jordan says Cabinet has decided that June 1 remains the date on which the national minimum wage will be raised from $8.50 per hour to $10.50 an hour. For security guards the hourly rate will be increased from $9.25 to $11.43.
Jordan said while Government was sensitive to the fact that higher spending on wages would impact employers and the business community, it believed the size of the increase and its timing were reasonable.
“We remain of the view that the increase is reasonable [and] that the increase is timely,” he said.
Following a report that at least one employer had short-changed some of its workers, the minister warned businesses not to use the national minimum wage order to pay their employees less than they were due.
Jordan was speaking at Ilaro Court during a post-Cabinet press conference where he reported “broad compliance” with the national minimum wage that was first implemented in 2021.
He said the Minimum Wage Board reported to Cabinet that when the 40-day period of notice preceding the national minimum wage increase ended on May 27, there were some objections.
He said these included from “those who are of the view that the wage as proposed in the draft order is too low, . . . that more time was needed [and] there are those who believe that the . . . overall impact economically, is going to be negative”.”
“The Minimum Wage Board has examined all of the submissions, all of the objections, and the board submitted a report to the Cabinet. The Cabinet made a decision today to continue with . . .the introduction of the increase in the national minimum wage,” Jordan told the media.
“So that from June 1, the national minimum wage will be $10.50 across the board, with a sectoral minimum wage of $11.43. The overtime rate and the double time rate follows from the $10.50, and the $11.43.”
Cabinet also agreed to the Minimum Wage Board’s recommendation that individuals on apprenticeships or work experience programmes not exceeding three months “will be paid at a rate of 85 per cent of the minimum wage”.
Jordan said while Cabinet was aware that businesses would face higher costs from a national minimum wage increase, Government was also conscious that Barbadian workers have been “holding strain” from higher prices over the last three years in particular.
“We are very clear that people have to be able to eat. They have to be able to look after their dependants and so these are matters that we take into consideration,” he said.
“We also take into consideration that employers and businesses have to be sustainable, and we are satisfied that the increase in the national minimum wage will not make businesses unsustainable.”
The minister also cautioned employers against reducing the wages of their employees, saying that while Cabinet does not want to establish a weekly minimum wage, “that really . . .depends on the reaction coming to the establishment of the new [hourly] rate”.
Jordan also said that “our information suggests that there was broad compliance” with the original national minimum wage. He urged employers not to short-change their workers.
“We have had a situation where one employer who was paying above the minimum of $8.50 took it upon themselves to pay at the overtime rate that was stated in the order, which is one and a half times $8.50 as opposed to one and a half times of the higher rate that the person was being paid,” he said.
“I warn against anybody using the order to get away from paying at one and a half times the rate that they are contracted to pay.
“What is in the order will speak to one and a half times the minimum. It is set on a floor, but over time it is one and a half times the rate that you pay to your workers.” (SC)
