[ad_1]
(CNS): Labour Minister Dwayne Seymour has effectively rejected the findings of the Minimum Wage Advisory Committee and wants to review the report they submitted last year. The minister, who employs minimum wage workers in his airport services business, said in a speech in parliament on Monday that UPM wants the committee to review the minimum wage based on different rates for different industries.
Meanwhile, wages for tourism workers are set to increase to $7 an hour by July 2025, down from $8.75. Respectedemployers will no longer be able to use bonuses to supplement wages.
Seymour Delayed The committee has been closely monitoring the report and its recommendations since MWAC chairman Lemuel Hurlstone submitted it to the government in October 2023. The report was not made public until March this year.
The current minimum wage is just 6 Cayman Islands dollars per hour. Although only a few thousand migrant workers receive this extremely low wage, inflation over the past five years has pushed the minimum wage, which was previously estimated at around 6.75 Cayman Islands dollars per hour, below the absolute poverty line.
The proposed wage increase from 6 to 8.75 will directly benefit about 10,457 workers. But many workers, including Caymanians, are paid far less than the proposed 8.75 and will now have to wait at least another two years to find out if their wages will rise, as Seymour hinted that some industries will not see any increase.
The decision to raise the minimum wage for tourism workers by just $1 an hour may suggest that even an across-the-board wage increase is unlikely to have much of an impact, as it would only add $40 to the average weekly wage and inflation would continue to erode the value of low incomes.
The recommended wage is 46% higher than the current wage introduced in 2016, but the value of the wage has been significantly reduced due to inflation. The committee found that most businesses could afford a $10 hourly wage increase, but they did not recommend it due to concerns about inflation.
The current minimum wage is just under 28% of the economy’s average wage. “This is a very low ratio compared to regional and international standards,” said the International Labour Organization, which assists the MWAC.
The report notes that only seven countries in the world have a ratio as low as the Cayman Islands, with most countries around 50 percent. The Cayman Islands’ minimum wage would need to be around $10.50 per hour to be close to half the nominal hourly average wage.
When Seymour responded to a question from Progressives Leader Roy McTaggart, McTaggart made no mention of the minister’s objection to the issue, saying only that the government wanted to revisit the issue and was setting up a new committee.
“After careful consideration of the impact on Caymanians and the general economic issues … we have decided to re-establish the Minimum Wage Advisory Committee with specific instructions to investigate and recommend industry-wide measures,” he said. “We have also decided that, effective July 1, 2025, employees in the hospitality and hospitality industries will be the only industries to receive an increase in the minimum wage to $7 per hour.”
The minister said the current 25 per cent bonus pool that employers can use to supplement the $6 wage will be removed on July 1. But the wage for all other industries will remain at $6 an hour until the new commission is formed and completes its work.
Seymour said the new committee had not yet been formally appointed but the government hoped to begin work as soon as possible, noting that some of the committee members from this latest review would be asked to serve on the new committee.
McTaggart asked him what would happen to the rejected report, but Seymour claimed that the report had not been rejected. At this point, he publicly thanked the committee for the “enormous” work they had done for the first time, but pointed out that their work was based on what the committee had asked of them.
“The caucus … needs more information and data on the sectoral approaches,” he said. “Members feel that we cannot have a uniform minimum wage across all sectors because that could have an economic impact on Caymanians because their wages may not increase.”
Although he did not specify what he meant, the minister appeared to be talking about domestic workers. However, rejecting the report would not help Caymanians earning less than C$8.75 per hour who would have benefited from a wage increase.
See the short answer below from CIGTv:
[ad_2]
Source link
