MINISTER of Labour, Dr. Nanda Gopaul has, successfully, sought Cabinet’s support for the establishment of a national minimum wage in Guyana, Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Presidential Secretariat (JPS), Dr. Roger Luncheon announced Wednesday. The request was made subsequent to discussions and the recommendation of the government, organised labour and the private sector, Luncheon reported at his resumed weekly post-Cabinet media briefing.
Speaking at Office of the President, Shiv Chanderpaul Drive, in Georgetown, he said Cabinet was in full support of the groups’ initiative and that Gopaul has already been urged to compile a comprehensive list of interventions necessary to give effect to the government’s intentions.
Cabinet has also approved a high-level team of its members to further this initiative and plan the necessary consultation process to ensure that the full buy-in of all takeholders is obtained.
The initiative is truly national, cutting across all sectors, public, private, corporate, unidentified, all sectors of the Guyana economy, the HPS said.
“What currently exists is deliberate attention to certain sectors, particularly semi-skilled and unskilled for which, annually, the government undertakes to do orders revising the minimum wage for those categories.
“This initiative is an improvement, the ultimate improvement that binds employers across the scale to subscribe to a minimum wage. No employee would earn less than.
“The minimum wage in the budget, the minimum wage that is out in the public domain are of two origins. One, there is the Public Service minimum wage and the second one, the minimum wages to those sectors that I identified that are set by the Minister of Labour in discharging his statutory obligations under labour legislation.
“So there are two types of minimum wages that co-exist, the Public Service minimum wage and the minimum wage for certain categories.
But, he assured:”There would just be one minimum wage for the entire workforce in Guyana.”a