Every time there is an increase in the minimum wage one would
think, from the ensuing reaction, that businesses are barely
making it and/or that the increase involves all their employees.
In the first place the increase is $1, from $8 to $9 an hour.
It is a 12 per cent increase. And while it is arguable that
this increase could have a ricocheting effect on wages from
the bottom up, the fact remains that only people who now earn
under $360 a week, made up of full eight-hour days, five days
a week, are entitled to the benefit.
Should any human being working such hours be paid less than
$360 in T&T today?
Surely, that is the real question.
We have business people in some quarters impliedly threatening
to increase prices to “make up” as it were for this
increase in their wage bill.
One would think that all their employees are now earning less
than the $360 a week so that the impact must be a total increase
in their wage bill of 12 per cent.
This is surely ridiculous since there must be at least a promotion
line and employees who would have been there long term. In
any event, if an employer could only profit by keeping his
employees on the breadline, then would he be in business at
all?
I think not, since that suggests that most businesses are
barely profiting and I know this is not so.
The San Juan Business Association has predicted gloom and
doom in the possibilities of unemployment and inflation (specifically
to be seen in grocery prices) as a result of this increase
in minimum wage. This is a wage increase, for goodness sake,
and one that would involve the lowest paid employees—not
an exorbitant commercial tax or hefty rise in gas prices.
Furthermore, the predictions suggest two things.
It is a confession that:
n certain business people will be sure to pass on any additional
expense they incur to the consumer (so they will never suffer);
and
n the impact of the minimum wage increase will be felt mostly
in groceries.
The latter conclusion is drawn from the repeated statement
that grocery prices will increase, thus suggesting that the
bulk of workers at such places are existing on minimum wages.
This might well be true, as it is true of workers at fast
food places, domestic workers, agricultural workers, gas station
attendants and even some security guards.
This fact begs the question, how do such people survive?
Can any human being in today’s world live on less than
$1,500 a month?
No one expects business people or other employers to support
the unemployables, but surely, there is still the concept
of paying an honest wage for an honest day’s work.
Grocery employees, domestic workers and others who earn minimum
wages may not be qualified for technical jobs and the jobs
they take do not demand such qualifications.
Nonetheless, most of them work long hours doing the most menial
tasks that many of us would not do. Should they not be paid
a living wage for this?
It is clear that anyone who wants to have a full-time maid
(8 hours x 5 days) and carps at paying $1,500 monthly for
such service simply wants to exploit that employee.
The same is true of groceries and fast food places, in particular.
I take the point that small business enterprises may find
it difficult to get off the ground with heavy overheads, but
just when planning such an enterprise one budgets for capital
expenditure and other expenses, one must take into account
the cost of wages and salaries.
The TTMA president has said that he is concerned about enterprises
such as restaurants, small groceries and the retail market.
The fact is, they probably will be the ones to feel the pinch
more—their workforce is smaller.
However, my point is the same employees should not be made
to suffer to ensure that their employer remains in business.
An employee is under no obligation to subsidise anyone’s
venture into business—small business or not.
They ought not to be expected to survive in less than human
dignity when working a full day every day for someone else’s
benefit. To expect them to do so and that the Government should
not step in to assure otherwise is to advocate exploitation.
Small business people should instead concentrate their efforts
in ensuring that they benefit from the several incentives
that the State claims to have put in place to assist them.
Sometimes to hear some people talk about the impact of minimum
wage increase and the resulting threat of unemployment (or
reduction in work hours) one might conclude that the sole
reason they hire workers is to provide employment.
It is purely for altruistic reasons and they employ these
non-productive members of society whom they are forced to
pay $8 and now (horror) will have to pay a whopping $9!
Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth, judging
by the work that I see grocery employees, factory workers
and fast food workers perform.
In many developed countries the State has had to set minimum
wages. The sole reason was to ensure that certain groups of
workers—mainly the unskilled—were not exploited.
In the US it arose as a result of the clear evidence that
this occurred especially in factories and other places where
immigrants worked.
Today minimum wage is what is paid mainly in fast food outlets,
which by and large employ students and/or very young people.
Few people are expected to live permanently on a minimum wage.
In T&T no employee, even the most unskilled, deserves
to be paid less than $9 an hour and many who are currently
so paid are worthy of better.
