Georgetown: Head of the Presidential Secretariat (HPS), Dr. Roger Luncheon at his weekly post-Cabinet press briefing at the Office of the President Thursday announced that the new national minimum wage of $35,000 monthly will take effect from July 1.
In January earlier this year, Government established a ministerial team to work to fine-tune the necessary procedures that would facilitate the establishment of a national minimum wage. This effort was led by Minister of Labour, Dr. Nanda Gopaul.
This initiative is strongly supported at the level of the tripartite committee which consists of Government officials, representatives from the various labour organisations and the private sector.
The new wages agreed to are as follows: monthly wages paid to workers-$35,000, weekly-$8,000, and hourly- $200.
In 1977, the public service minimum wage was promulgated. Dr. Luncheon said that this initiative, which has been fully endorsed by the Cabinet, is long overdue.
“The national minimum wage does indeed take into consideration other provisions…this order would essentially say that no fulltime worker will be remunerated at a level less that this new minimum wage structure,” the HPS explained.
Workers who are not covered under this new structure such as those who work on a part-time basis, other statutes such as the annual increases and orders that deal with categories of unskilled and semi-skilled workers, issued by the Ministry of Labour annually, will apply to them.
The new minimum wage will be one that is truly national; cutting across all sectors of the economy including: public, private and corporate.
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