Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley has defended workers’ rights to pay and has advised them to educate themselves on the conditions and provisions surrounding such rights.
“Once a worker has done the work, the employer must pay money on time. The employer must not take money from their pay packet without proper authority,” Mottley said yesterday, reinforcing the provisions set out in the Protection of Wages Bill, 2026, which was later passed after extensive debate in two successive sittings of the House.
Mottley explained the legislation “recognises the imbalance between the relationship between employer and employee and seeks to level that playing field, such that advantage is not taken of the workers, and that if it is, the employer must face real consequences when the law is broken”.
She asserted a wage packet was not just an accounting entry, but the means by which people were able to put food on the table for their families.
“We can decide that the money already earned by a Bajan worker, must arrive on time, must be backed with a remedy with teeth.”
The legislation contains several stipulations which Mottley broke down, explaining that, “pay day becomes a legal obligation; that the pay packet belongs to the worker; that modern payment must not just become modern coercion; that leaving a job or seeing a business fail does not erase the right to earn pay; that a right must always be paired with a road to a remedy; that the law acquires consequences worthy of the offence.”
The legislation makes pay day a legal obligation as spelled out in Clause three of the legislation which stipulates that the employer must establish a recurring pay period and a recurring pay day. That certainty, Mottley said, was critical for employees to plan out their lives
She asserted wages earned for that period must be paid no later than the pay day applicable to the payment arrangement for the respective period of work, be it weekly, monthly or fortnightly.
“I want every worker from the fields to the factories; from the hotels to the homes, to understand what is at stake and what is being reinforced and protected by this Bill,” the Prime Minister said.
Spelling out conditions applicable to minimum wage payments, she explained: “At the general minimum wage we already know that with the minimum wage at $10.71, that 40 hours of work works out to $428.40 before deductions . . . If you are a minimum wage earner working a 40-hour week, you should be earning $428.40 before a cent is deducted from you in any respect. That money is earned . . . and the worker should not have to lend it back to any business by waiting beyond pay day.”
The Prime Minister stressed the wage packet “belongs to the worker” and warned the employer “do not touch it. It does not belong to you.”
Similarly, she pointed out Clauses 7-14 of the Bill put rules around wage advances, deductions and the recovery of wage overpayments. In addition, an employer is prohibited from charging interest on any advance they make on wages.
The legislation places a limit of one-third with respect to advances, certain deductions and overpayment recovery from wages.
“I want the workers to know that if somebody is doing that to them, then they need to go to their union or to the Labour Office.” (GC)