THE 2019 budget has made provisions for public servants to benefit from a new minimum wage of $64, 000. Minimum wage for public servants has seen a progressive increase of nearly 52 per cent in two years, from $39,570, in 2015 to $60,000 in 2017.
While this year’s budget has not seen an increase in minimum wage for private workers, leaving it at the present, $44, 200, which was enacted in 2017, private workers employed in the mining town of Linden, are calling for stricter enforcement of this, as they too can enjoy the good life befitting public servants.

Speaking to a few privately employed workers, who continue to earn far below the legally stipulated minimum wage, they all expressed their frustration, not that budget 2019 had nothing in store for them, but that what was in store previously, is not be respected by many employers. “You know sometimes you would get a bit jealous when you hear public servants getting this and getting that and you not getting it, you still carrying home $27,000 when the month come and is not like you don’t have qualifications like them, but the Government implementing things and not ensuring that we are paid properly,” one employee of a popular drug store in Linden lamented.

One security guard attached to a private firm also lamented low rates in wages and noted that even after working several hours of overtime, his salary is still below the minimum wage. He is calling for the relevant authorities to ensure that all Guyanese, as longs employed and paying the relevant taxes, should not take home a salary less than $44, 200. “Not because we are not being paid from the government’s coffers mean that we should not be given what is due to us, sometimes two, three months does pass and we don’t get paid,” the security guard said. He revealed that while he supplements his salary with both old age and NIS pensions, there are others who are receiving only their salary and he sometimes wonder how they survive on same. “I done old and I fighting up to get a roof over my head, I don’t have minor and them things but I need a roof over my head, that’s why I’m still working, but I does study my squaddie them that young and get wife and children, how they really surviving on thirty something thousand a month, how they really doing it, I don’t know,” the security guard lamented.

He reasoned that employees within the Ministry of Social Protection and the Department of Labour who are sure of getting their salary increases, retroactive tax free payments and so forth, should take their jobs seriously in ensuring that defaulting employers are prosecuted, especially foreign employers (speaking of the Chinese operating supermarkets in Linden) who are exploiting their workers and not giving them their due. Last year, this publication interviewed several salesgirls in the Mackenzie Market who related several horrifying stories of exploitation.

On Friday, many of them noted that things have not changed.
The salesgirls had related that their salaries are between $8,000 to $9,000 per week. They work six days a week and, if for any reason they miss a day’s work, the pay is cut. One salesgirl said her salary is even cut when a public holiday falls on a work day.
Another salesgirl who has five children and has been working at a variety store for several years, said she does not receive any sick days, or bonuses, her NIS is not being paid and her salary is very low.

This publication was told that social services officials visited the market arena and were soliciting views from employees, but it was not tactfully done since the employers were right there. While the wages situation may be debatable, several sections of the labour laws are still being broken, such as workers not being paid for not working on a national holiday or workers NIS not being honoured.
According to the Ministry of Social Protection National Minimum Wage Order, businesses within the private sector are required to pay their employees no less than $44,200 per month.

In accordance with Section 8 of the Labour Act, “the minimum rate of wages payable to an employed person shall not be less than $255.00 per hour or $2,040 per day or $10,200.00 per week or $44,200.00 per month, as the case may be.”

This order targets persons operating in the food, transportation, manufacturing, social services, health, hospitality and entertainment, security, garment, agriculture and tourism sectors, among others. Workers are stipulated to work 40 hours per week and should not exceed five days per week. The order further stated that any employer who fails to comply with the provisions of the order will be liable upon summary conviction to a fine of $45,000 for the first offence and for any second or subsequent offence, to a fine of $90,000 and one month’s imprisonment.