Devon DickTODAY IS the minimum wage D-Day because our parliamentarians will decide whether to accept the
recommendation of an 11.5 per cent increase on $2,000 a week and on $96 an hour for security guards.
Hopefully, the parliamentarians would heed my column, 'Minimum wage: ediot ting dat' (28/12/04) and not dismiss it as simplistic as the Jamaica Employers Federation did during an interview with Ronnie Thwaites of Independent Talk on Power 106.
During that interview the president of the Jamaica Employers Federation telephoned and also said that I should do research. I have done more research and it is worse than I realised. A
managing director of a security company telephoned me and said that many security guards are being paid below the minimum wage. He further claims that the Ministry of Labour knows this. But what can the ministry do when Minister Dalley told me that the fine for disobeying the minimum wage is $200.
SEVERELY UNDER-PAID
In addition, a minister of religion and a friend who both work in the hotel industry allege that some workers in the hotel industry are paid below minimum wage and they have seen the pay slip! A couple days ago, a well known figure in the financial sector said that his daughter who is studying hotel management gets $1,600 a week for work experience and works 12 hours a day at a leading resort. Good training for the realities of wages and working conditions in so many hotels.
A survey shows that hotel workers are worse off now than 20 years ago! Store clerks
and receptionists in some 'respectable' companies are also underpaid. On Friday, a caller told 'Motty' Perkins that a
leading fast food restaurant pays workers $2,000 a week. In
addition, one large employer
disassociated himself from the three per cent increase proposed by the JEF. Did the JEF consult its constituency about this
insensitive increase? Another caller said he has to pay the minimum wage because it is the law.
FORGETTING OUR PAST
I also spoke to a Jamaica Council of Churches official about the minimum wage. Nobody has disagreed with me that the minimum wage is low. Part of the problem why some are reluctant to increase it to a reasonable level is because some Jamaicans forget where they are coming from. They are also insensitive to the genuine needs of the working poor. In addition, they do not have a mother or relative working these starvation wages and they do not recognise that these workers are smaddy pickney dem too.
Not only are we saying that these waiters will never be able to pay for a meal in the restaurants they work, but they must never send their children to secondary school or to university. Their children should be hewers of stone and drawers of water. Household helpers must live and die in helpers' quarters. How will a minimum wage earner ever afford to pay for surgery? If God does not heal directly then dawg nyam dem suppa!
It is time to boycott these businesses that pay below the minimum wage. What are the arguments against increasing the minimum wage? Persons will lose jobs. In other words, owners of companies are going to form 'home guards' with their senior managers and watch the company. Furthermore, when since has 'jobs' become the be all and end all. If that is so why abolish
slavery, when everybody was employed? Would a company decline to install computers because some persons might lose jobs. Would Air Jamaica stop
the redundancy exercise that
can move it from bankruptcy because some persons will lose jobs? Where is the scientific research that shows that persons will lose jobs if the minimum wage becomes reasonable?
PENSION
What is often forgotten is that household helpers, store clerks and other minimum wage earners also employ people to care for their children. Another thing. Are employers ensuring that the NIS is paid so that minimum wage earners have a little pension? There are some who say that there should be no minimum wage and instead allow the
market to determine the wage. However, government determines the wage of teachers, nurses, police and civil servants so why not minimum wage
earners?
I am heartened by the persons who told me that they have increased the pay to their workers because of the recommendation made in the article I wrote. I hope our representatives in Parliament will follow suit. The Prime Minister would not want, as part of his legacy, this paltry wage. The Opposition Leader who spoke about haves and have-nots will not end his career by voting for 11.5 per cent. Which parliamentarian is going to proudly tell voters that they voted for 11.5 per cent increase on $2000 a week minimum wage?
The Rev. Devon Dick is
pastor of the Boulevard
Baptist Church and author of 'Rebellion to Riot: the Church in Nation Building'.
