The new Min­i­mum Wages Board has been ap­point­ed.

On Mon­day, Labour Min­is­ter Stephen Mc Clashie ap­point­ed the board dur­ing a cer­e­mo­ny at the Min­istry of Labour’s head of­fice at the In­ter­na­tion­al Wa­ter­front Cen­tre in Port-of-Spain.

The new mem­bers in­clude chair Ju­dith So­bion, Bryan Rooplal, Ozzi War­wick, Knafe­sa George-Paul, Sani­ka Tyson, Ju­liana Hen­ry-King, Dou­glas Williams and tech­ni­cal sec­re­tary Cadell Pierre.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from the Min­istry, the Min­is­ter un­der­scored the im­por­tance of the board as he not­ed the last Min­i­mum Wages Board ro­bust­ly ful­filled its func­tion as it over­saw the rec­om­men­da­tions which were in­stru­men­tal in the time­ly procla­ma­tion of a new Min­i­mum Wages Or­der.

That or­der saw the in­crease of the min­i­mum wage from $17.50 to $20.50 per hour with ef­fect from Jan­u­ary 2024.

The min­is­ter said, “This 17 per cent in­crease is most wel­comed, and seeks to be fair and bal­anced, giv­en the va­ri­ety of con­sid­er­a­tions, fi­nan­cial and oth­er­wise that had to be tak­en in­to ac­count. This in­crease would im­pact an es­ti­mat­ed 190,000 work­ers and their fam­i­lies, there­by af­ford­ing them a bet­ter stan­dard of liv­ing.”

The min­istry list­ed eight items which were achieved over the pre­vi­ous board’s tenure.

It in­clud­ed the re­view of the 2019 Min­i­mum Wages Or­der; the Do­mes­tic Work­ers Or­der; the im­pact of COVID-19 on min­i­mum wage earn­ers; the Wages Reg­u­la­tion/Agri­cul­tur­al Un­der­tak­ings Or­der, 1964; the Cater­ing In­dus­try Or­der; the con­cept of a liv­ing wage and its ap­plic­a­bil­i­ty in T&T; Se­cu­ri­ty In­dus­try Em­ploy­ees Or­der of 1995; and ad­min­is­tra­tive re­ports for fis­cal 2021 and 2022.

Th re­lease al­so not­ed the Board had pro­vid­ed com­ments and in­puts in­to the Min­istry of Labour’s own pa­per-based Stake­hold­er Con­sul­ta­tion on the Min­i­mum Wages Act, Chap­ter 88:04, car­ried out from Sep­tem­ber 20, 2021 to Oc­to­ber 30, 2021 and sub­se­quent com­ments were re­ceived and are be­ing in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to the on­go­ing re­vi­sion of the Min­i­mum Wages Act.