Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane/su­perville@guardian.co.tt

On the eve of this coun­try’s Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion for fis­cal 2024 on Mon­day, sec­re­tary-gen­er­al of the Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (NATUC) Michael An­nisette and gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) Ozzi War­wick have urged the Gov­ern­ment to do their best to ease the fi­nan­cial strain on mid­dle- and low­er-in­come fam­i­lies by rais­ing the min­i­mum wage.

This as Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley yes­ter­day kept the is­sue of whether the min­i­mum wage will be ad­dressed in to­day’s Bud­get close to his chest, as me­dia re­ports spec­u­lat­ed there could be an in­crease from $17.50 to $19.50 per hour among the main fea­tures of to­day’s fis­cal pack­age.

In Sep­tem­ber, dur­ing a post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing, Row­ley con­firmed that while the min­i­mum wage was be­ing con­sid­ered for ad­just­ment, there were con­cerns that such a de­ci­sion could re­sult in in­creas­ing in­fla­tion in oth­er ar­eas.

But An­nisette and War­wick on Sun­day again urged the Gov­ern­ment to make the call on in­creas­ing the min­i­mum wage.

Anisette said it was not a mat­ter of whether the min­i­mum wage should be in­creased but rather how much it should be in­creased by.

An­nisette was one of sev­er­al rep­re­sen­ta­tives from dif­fer­ent trade unions who met with the Op­po­si­tion last week to ex­change rec­om­men­da­tions ahead of the Bud­get. He said in­creas­ing the min­i­mum wage was crit­i­cal in demon­strat­ing care for a vul­ner­a­ble cat­e­go­ry in T&T’s so­cial hi­er­ar­chy.

“When one looks at the econ­o­my in T&T and how the cost of liv­ing has grad­u­al­ly in­creased over the past four years or so, I don’t think there is any ques­tion about whether the min­i­mum wage will be in­creased,” An­nisette told Guardian Me­dia.

He added: “One must ask them­selves if we are se­ri­ous about build­ing a so­ci­ety where all of us can sur­vive and build a na­tion. I be­lieve, and NATUC be­lieves, that the most vul­ner­a­ble work­ers have to be tak­en care of.”

War­wick said he al­so felt it was time to ad­just the min­i­mum wage.

“The fact is that they (min­i­mum wage earn­ers) have un­der­gone ex­treme hard­ship over the last few years, and I think that it is on­ly right and de­cent if there can be some lev­el of ad­just­ment for those work­ers,” War­wick said.

“I think they (work­ing class) have car­ried the bur­den of eco­nom­ic ad­just­ment for too long and they have re­al­ly stood the test of time, con­tin­u­ing to work even in those cir­cum­stances, so lit­er­al­ly they work to pay for their trans­port, food and a lit­tle shel­ter.”

Dur­ing his vis­it to a health fair at the Care­nage Boys’ Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School on Sun­day, how­ev­er, Row­ley kept Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion on min­i­mum wage close to his chest, say­ing on­ly that any changes would be re­vealed by to­day.

Pressed on the is­sue, the Prime Min­is­ter said, “We have sur­vived up to this point, with­in 48 hours you will know all the re­al facts.

“I don’t know that the (news­pa­per named) has its own bud­get but maybe they’re bet­ter ad­vised than I am. I am go­ing to talk to the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance now to fin­ish the work that we’re do­ing, so I wouldn’t be here too long but the Bud­get is al­most ready, so by to­mor­row, all the spec­u­la­tion will be over.”

Some sec­tors of so­ci­ety have warned against in­creas­ing the min­i­mum wage to a fig­ure Gov­ern­ment and the busi­ness sec­tor may not be able to sus­tain, not­ing it could have a neg­a­tive im­pact on small and medi­um busi­ness­es.

Ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry of Labour’s web­site, the na­tion­al min­i­mum wage was first es­tab­lished in 1998 at a rate of $7 per hour and grad­u­al­ly rose to $8 per hour in 2003. The wage rose again by $1 in March 2005 and again to $12.50 per hour from Jan­u­ary 2010.

In Jan­u­ary 2015, the min­i­mum wage was in­creased again to $15 per hour and even­tu­al­ly to $17.50 per hour on De­cem­ber 1, 2019, where it re­mains to­day.