PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

Labour Min­is­ter Stephen Mc Clashie con­firmed yes­ter­day that the Min­i­mum Wages Board had made rec­om­men­da­tions to ad­just the min­i­mum wage be­fore the call was made by Joint Trade Union Move­ment pres­i­dent, An­cel Ro­get on Labour Day to raise the min­i­mum wage from $17.50 to $30.

In a brief phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Mc Clashie said, “They would have sent me a re­port with rec­om­men­da­tions on the na­tion­al min­i­mum wage, which I am cur­rent­ly re­view­ing. There­after we will look to Cab­i­net to de­ter­mine whether we can make an ad­just­ment and what that ad­just­ment would be.”

Mc Clashie said the process to ad­just the min­i­mum wage re­quired care­ful de­lib­er­a­tion as it would have to care­ful­ly as­sess the wider eco­nom­ic im­pacts of the change.

“One of the many is­sues that come up is min­i­mum wage. It’s quite a com­plex item and we have to con­sid­er its im­pact on var­i­ous seg­ments of the na­tion­al econ­o­my be­cause once you put a new min­i­mum wage in place, it means that many gov­ern­men­tal agen­cies will now be sad­dled with that rate that it would have to pay as re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture go­ing down the road,” said Mc Clashie.

He al­so echoed con­cerns raised ear­li­er this week by econ­o­mist Mar­lene Attzs, who not­ed that the in­crease in the wage may lead to the price of goods ris­ing as well.

“We know that in Trinidad de­pend­ing on the rate, peo­ple might just treat it as a pass-through to raise their prices to ac­com­mo­date the rate and oth­er in­fla­tion­ary pos­si­bil­i­ties. I am re­view­ing it for the mo­ment. I have not sent it to Cab­i­net as yet but I will with­in a month or so and then Cab­i­net will make the fi­nal de­ter­mi­na­tion based on its im­pact on where we are at or if we can move it at all.”

In 2021, the Labour Min­istry in­vit­ed mem­bers of the pub­lic to a na­tion­al con­sul­ta­tion on the min­i­mum wage, in ac­cor­dance with the Min­i­mum Wages Act Chap­ter 88:04.

The wage was last ad­just­ed, to $17.50, in De­cem­ber 2019, four years af­ter it was raised to $15 in 2015.

In Au­gust 2022, the Min­istry of Labour pub­lished a ten­der no­tice invit­ing pro­pos­als for con­sul­tan­cy ser­vices for the con­duct of re­search on the im­pact of the min­i­mum wage on the econ­o­my.

The Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer Ni­rad Tewarie, in a state­ment to Guardian Me­dia on Wednes­day, al­so weighed in on the is­sue.

“AM­CHAM T&T be­lieves that every­one who works full time should have de­cent work and be com­pen­sat­ed via a liv­ing wage. The ex­act amount of a min­i­mum wage should be the re­sult of frank and hon­est dis­cus­sions about all of the fac­tors that go in to de­ter­mi­na­tion of a liv­ing wage and the im­pli­ca­tions of any changes. Dis­cussing a liv­ing wage on­ly in the con­text of dol­lar amount, is like­ly to mask the need to im­prove na­tion­al in­fra­struc­ture and so­cial ser­vices that have tan­gi­ble, ma­te­r­i­al fi­nan­cial im­pact on all cit­i­zens but dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly those who would fall in­to the cat­e­go­ry of min­i­mum wage earn­ers,” said Tewarie.

Tewarie con­tin­ued, “There­fore we wel­come the dis­cus­sion and feel it im­por­tant that it be widened to con­sid­er the de­sired out­comes since set­ting a min­i­mum wage is a tool to achieve bet­ter stan­dards of liv­ing for some of the most vul­ner­a­ble in so­ci­ety as op­posed to be­ing an end in it­self.”