The Em­ploy­ers Con­sul­ta­tive As­so­ci­a­tion yes­ter­day called on em­ploy­ers to obey the new min­i­mum wage law.

The law, which came in­to ef­fect on Mon­day, stip­u­lates that no work­er in T&T, in­clud­ing mi­grant work­ers, should be paid less than $20.50 per hour, or $164 for an eight-hour day.

With the new min­i­mum wage of $20.50 in ef­fect, ECA chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Ronald Ram­lo­gan said it is not op­tion­al as it is now law.

Ram­lo­gan said the change in the law was an­nounced in the 2024 bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion de­liv­ered by Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, Colm lm­bert, in Oc­to­ber. That means busi­ness own­ers had am­ple time to put things in place, he said.

“We would en­cour­age em­ploy­ers to ad­here to the law and en­sure they com­ply with what is a leg­isla­tive re­quire­ment for those who are cov­ered by the Min­i­mum Wages Act and the Min­i­mum Wage Board that sup­ports the min­i­mum wages,” said Ram­lo­gan.

The Min­i­mum Wages Act oblig­es em­ploy­ers to do the fol­low­ing:

• Keep, main­tain and re­tain wage records for a min­i­mum of three years in or­der to show com­pli­ance;

• Pro­vide labour in­spec­tors with in­for­ma­tion about the wages and terms and con­di­tions of work;

• Al­low labour in­spec­tors to in­spect wage records and pay sheets;

• Per­mit the in­spec­tors to in­ter­view work­ers.

In Oc­to­ber, short­ly af­ter the an­nounce­ment of the in­creased min­i­mum wage, the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (TTCIC) said the in­crease re­quires em­ploy­ers and em­ploy­ees to fo­cus on ef­fi­cien­cy, pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, and out­put.

“The TTCIC al­so un­der­stands the need for an in­crease in min­i­mum wage as a nec­es­sary ad­just­ment for the work­force giv­en the cur­rent state of in­fla­tion,” it said.

In a news re­lease on Sun­day, Min­is­ter of Labour, Stephen Mc Clashie, said the new min­i­mum wage, which is a 17 per cent in­crease, was de­ter­mined based on care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion and as­sess­ment by the Min­i­mum Wage Board.

“This board, com­pris­ing Gov­ern­ment, work­ers’ and em­ploy­ers’ rep­re­sen­ta­tives, was first es­tab­lished in March 1977, and was con­sti­tut­ed to ad­vise and make rec­om­men­da­tions to the Min­is­ter on all mat­ters re­lat­ing to the fix­ing of min­i­mum wages and terms and con­di­tions of ser­vice,” said the news re­lease.

The new min­i­mum wage was based on sev­er­al con­sid­er­a­tions, in­clud­ing:

• The gen­er­al lev­el of wages in T&T;

• The cost of liv­ing;

• Con­tri­bu­tions payable and ben­e­fits pro­vid­ed un­der the sys­tem of na­tion­al in­sur­ance es­tab­lished by the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Act; and

• Oth­er eco­nom­ic fac­tors, in­clud­ing the re­quire­ments of eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment, lev­els of pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and the de­sir­abil­i­ty of at­tain­ing and main­tain­ing high lev­els of em­ploy­ment.

Act­ing Labour Min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell, in a news re­lease on Sun­day, said that the lat­est $3 hourly in­crease will ben­e­fit ap­prox­i­mate­ly 190,000 work­ers.