Last week, when Labour Minister Joseph Hamilton provided an update on the ongoing discussions about increasing the minimum wage in the private sector from $44,200 to $60,000 a month, he revealed that in order to be fair, he needed to take the impact of COVID-19 into consideration. He did not specify to whom he needed to be fair. He was also quoted as asking, “The question is should or can we do it now…?” He did not answer that question.
There had been what Mr Hamilton referred to as “a gentlemen’s agreement” in 2019 by the tripartite committee comprising government, the labour movement (unions) and the private sector on the increase to $60,000. Why it was not implemented will perhaps remain a mystery, though anyone with a bit of savvy could hazard a guess that would hardly be wrong, especially when one takes into consideration the pushback from some quarters over the last two increases in 2013 and 2017.
In 2013, the increase in minimum wage to $35,000 a month was implemented simultaneously with a mandatory 40-hour work week. The Private Sector Commission had claimed that the increase would negatively impact security firms and exporters who have contracts with foreign firms as they would have already negotiated contracts based on the old wage rates and would not be able to renegotiate them. It had appealed to government to renegotiate contracts with security firms. Further, RK’s Security Services had threatened to terminate the contracts it had with the government and lay off 120 employees, insisting that paying the increase would make the business inoperable. Other private sector employers had also baulked at the 40-hour mandate claiming it would prove problematic in the retail, manufacturing, security and agricultural industries.
In 2017, when the minimum wage was increased to $44,200 a month, the same security firm had stated that it would have to remove its guards from government locations in the interior and that this time 340 employees would face the breadline. The firm’s CEO Roshan Khan had stated that RK’s was losing some $1 million a month by paying the increase.
The figures agreed to by the tripartite committee on each occasion – $35,000 in 2013, $44,200 in 2017 and $60,000 in 2019 – constitute the bare minimum that a worker should be earning according to the government, unions, and private sector. None of these amounts translate to what could be called a living wage.
It had been established based on casual research in 2014 that a family of four could spend between $2,500 and $4,000 per week just purchasing perishables (excluding meat or fish) at the market. Per month, fruit and vegetable purchases could cost between $10,000 and $16,000; for other groceries (milk, rice, meat) add another $20,000 to $30,000; for rent/mortgage, $20,000 to $60,000; public transportation, $10,000 to $20,000 or car loan and gas, $40,000 to $50,000. Even before adding other expenses like electricity, water, telephone, fuel for cooking any single-income, minimum-wage family is at a deficit.
The question of fairness really should be considered given that the figures quoted above were from 2014 and that there have been almost annual increases in the cost of living. The impact of COVID-19 on a single-income family whose wage earner took home $44,200 less taxes and who might have since been severed must definitely be giving Minister Hamilton pause for thought. Or perhaps not since the government seems to have deemed a one-off $25,000 payout adequate.
Sadly, there are some workers who do not even earn the current minimum wage agreed to. Long suspected, this was brought to light in this newspaper’s ‘Women’s Chronicles’ column on October 11. Headlined “A shameful and horrifying incident”, the column explicitly revealed that a young Guyanese woman was viciously assaulted at a supermarket in Enmore, East Coast Demerara by a man and a woman of Chinese origin who were apparently her former employers. This took place in full view of customers, several of them men, who looked on for at least 15 minutes until one of them was finally prevailed upon to speak to the man inflicting the blows. As was later revealed by one of the victim’s former co-workers, they both worked at the supermarket and they were being underpaid. According to what this newspaper was told, “On Thursday, October 1, [the victim] worked half day and was only paid $500.” The co-worker said the victim protested and was either fired or walked off the job.
How is it possible in 2020 when the minimum daily rate is $2,040 an employee is paid $500 for half day’s work? Well there is more than one answer to this. The first is that there are unscrupulous employers who tend to find a way to circumvent the law. The second is that often workers are unaware of their rights. The instance cited above appears to be a mix of the two. It is highly likely that the underpayment of shop girls is widespread and not unique to this business. And though one hopes the physical abuse was an anomaly, the apathy of the local onlookers perhaps says otherwise.
Therefore, it is not enough for the government to simply agree to a minimum wage it believes to be fair to the private sector. The Labour Ministry must be in a position to ensure what is agreed is actually being paid by having officers spot check businesses. Labour officers must also ensure that workers, particularly those in rural areas and the non-unionised know their rights.
