BEC representatives outline proposed wage increase
Tuesday May 24 2011 | 05:38 AM

The representatives of the Barbados Employers’ Confederation (BEC), who serve on the Shop Wages Council outlined the meaning of the potential interim wage rate adjustment in the minimum wage yesterday. 

The BEC representatives on the Shop Wages Council – which has the mandate of reviewing the minimum wage of shop assistants with a view to increase these wages periodically – hosted the meeting of BEC members in order to make realistic and definitive proposals to the Shop Wages Council on how much employers can afford in terms of the potential interim wage rate adjustment for the minimum wage. Since 2004, employers have been paying $200 a week or $5 an hour as minimum wage, and the proposed interim wage rate adjustment is as much as $315 a week. 

The BEC representatives on the Shop Wages Council are Siobhan Robinson-Morris, Everton Browne and Kyrel Roach. 

Robinson-Morris explained that the outgoing Shop Wages Council had produced a report in December 2008 to increase the minimum wage of workers incrementally over a three-year period, and these increments were, in 2009 it would have been raised to $275 a week, $55 a day, or $6.87 an hour; in 2010, it would have moved to $300 a week, $60 a day, or $7.50 an hour; and then in 2011, it would have been raised to $315 a week, $63 a day, or $7.87 per hour, based on a 40-hour week. She said that at that time, the then Minister of Labour saw it fit to place this proposal in the back burner in light of the fact that the turbulent financial times had first begun to take hold. This means that the rate of minimum wage has been in place for almost seven years. 

She further explained that when the Council reconvened earlier this year, one of the first items on the agenda was the potential of an interim wage adjustment, since it has been so long since that particular class of workers have been given an adjustment. This interim adjustment will come into place on July 1 this year, and is scheduled to stay until the Council has collected the necessary information and done the necessary research to put a substantive wage rate in place. 

Robinson-Morris explained that all of the members of the Shop Wages Council, with the exception of those who represent to the BEC were in agreement to have the interim wage rate go to the 2011 proposed figure of $315 per week, adding that the representatives of the Employers’ Confederation deferred the decision in the hopes that they could get feedback from what employers could in reality afford. 

In addition to hosting yesterday’s meeting of employers to hear their views, the BEC has sent out surveys in order to better gauge what people are paid in this category of workers, and how far the employers can go, and what is the maximum threshold that employers can afford.