THOSE employers who flout the law or do not pay the new national minimum wage from this month end will be subject to full legal action by the Ministry of Labour.

Minister of Labour, Joseph Hamilton, in a recent interview with the Guyana Chronicle, noted that he will be depending on employees to come forward and report any employer which may not begin paying the new national minimum wage from this month end.

“The whole country is aware [of the new minimum wage], employers and employees are aware of what the law is. And therefore, I look to employees in the event that their employer is not living up to what the law says. They have to come and make those reports. I wait to see what will happen, and we will take it from there,” Minister Hamilton said.

A new national minimum wage of $60,147 per month went into effect from July 1, following the gazetting of the necessary order on 27 June. Minister Hamilton said he was sending a strong message to employers to ensure that salaries receive the necessary adjustments, or they will have to face the law.

“I would want to say to any employer, keep your lawyers lined up because we will take you to court if you don’t uphold the law,” the Minister declared.

“Once we have reports that companies are refusing to pay the new national minimum wage, we will intervene, and the law will take its course. Importantly we can summon all of a company’s books for review of the issue. It’s not an issue we don’t have control over, but I await month end to see how the issue plays out.”

However, the Minister explained that the Ministry will not be able to detect defaulting employers unless the employees are vigilant and report their employers if their salaries are not in keeping with what is expected.

“They can come and make a formal report, or persons can do what they’ve been doing for the past two years and send me WhatsApp messages. Anonymous messages are always coming to my phone, so they can do that if they have a concern,” the Minister related.

“We will take them [the employers] to court and have them ordered to pay what they refuse to pay. So we have a methodology that we can use.”

The increase in the national minimum wage is seen as another means of bringing some relief to persons given the increasing cost of living, which was brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and compounded by the war between Russia and Ukraine.

The measure will add to a slew of other measures thus far implemented by the government to cushion the cost of living increase.

The national private sector minimum wage has not been increased since 2017, when it was raised from an hourly rate of $202 to $255, taking the monthly salary from $35,000 to $44,200 for a 40-hour week. Comparatively, the minimum wage for the public sector is currently $70,000.

Discussions on the increase of the national minimum wage started in 2020. However, with the country amid the COVID-19 pandemic and with many private businesses struggling to meet their overhead expenses, the private sector had called for the postponement of the increase, given an inability to handle any increase in expenditure.

However, with most businesses being able to return to normal functioning since last year, the Private Sector Commission (PSC) had given the nod that it was ready to make the increase in wage official.

The private sector is one arm of the labour relations tripartite committee, including the trade unions and the Ministry of Labour. The tripartite committee had agreed on the increase earlier this year, which was an essential step in moving forward with the increase.