MINIMUM WAGE PAPPYSHOW

TALK of a revision of the minimum wage cropped up – as expected – in the midst of a heated election campaign.

Minister of Labour (it turns out we have such an official) Stephen McClashie was quoted as saying an amended minimum wage would be announced in coming weeks.

While the cost of some food items have galloped by up to 100 per cent since 2016 (I have a spreadsheet detailing the rise), the minimum wage has stayed stuck at $17.50 an hour.

More than that, public sector workers have been offered a four per cent pay hike – take it or leave it!

Joblessness has soared and the Government is relying on figures from the Central Statistical Office, which – hear this! – claims there is full employment in the land.

In its 2015 general election manifesto, the PNM damned CSO’s figures as flawed and useless.

Today, they work for the Government’s propaganda.

Even more critically is that the authorities have permitted the gap between the rich and the poor to reach its widest since the 1980s, when the bottom had fallen off the barrel of the economy.

The steady decline of the economy as a result of the reliance on the waning energy industry has seen thousands sent home in various sectors.

With the shutdown of the Pointe-a-Pierre operations and whittling down of energy servicing companies, the sector now employs a third of what it did a decade ago.

I know an engineer who now sells in the market in order to feed his family.

The Government two-timed the nation – and Petrotrin’s workers—through the shutdown of the refinery, which is now reduced to a pile of rusted iron.

The closure as a result of the Covid-19 epidemic severely wounded Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), to the point where thousands went out of business.

Along with that, some large operators – one corporation, in particular – entered the retail trade in several areas, benefiting from economies of scale and group marketing.

That large operator is also selling hot meals, directly affecting mom-and-pop shops that earned a daily bread by feeding the working masses.

Along with that, the working masses have felt a sharp impact of increases in fuel prices and a monopoly in the importation of pharmaceuticals.

Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley has brazenly asserted that “we have to allow the rich to get richer.”

That is a nod to trickle-down economics, which have flopped wherever it has been implemented, including the United States and Britain.

The policy disproportionately favours the rich, with the poor picking up crumbs that fall off the table.

It is no surprise that large business groups are expanding and reporting bigger and bigger profits, to the detriment of SMEs.

During the Covid-19 lockdown, the Government did not implement adequate measures to assist small and medium-sized businesses, in a manner similar to Britain and other modern societies.

Trinidad and Tobago’s commercial banks were probably the only financial institutions in the world to record increased profits during the Covid months.

Rowley has insisted he would not ask banks to tame their fees and charges.

In contrast, Barbados’ Mia Mottley told banks to alter their rates or she would intervene.

Ms. Mottley slammed: “The next thing we are going to hear is that the bank is going to charge you a fee depending on how skinny or fat you are…”

The Rowley administration scrapped tripartite discussions, which was an official forum for dialogue among the leaders of Government, employers and labour.

In short, the PNM Government has consistently rubbed the struggling working class the wrong way.

After playing footsy with the PNM for eight years, labour leader Ancel Roget now concedes: “We are not going to stop until we remove this evil scourge that has been on this country since the PNM came into existence.”

Under the PNM’s rule, large numbers of the working masses are now mired in poverty, poor nutrition, inadequate housing, and a general decline in the quality of life.

The administration has a feeble track record and little credibility with the labouring class.

Talk of a review of the minimum wage is another act of PNM pappyshow.