PM: Sectoral minimum wage still on the table

Prime Minister Patrick Manning stressed yesterday that his Government remained committed in principle to the idea of a sectoral minimum wage. Speaking at the swearing-in ceremony at President’s House, Manning added that Government had five years in which to fulfil its election pledge. “If the Government does not consider it appropriate at this time, that in no way says that it has been abandoned,” he said. Former Labour Minister Larry Achong resigned because of what he saw as Government’s attempt to renege on its manifesto promise — to implement a sectoral minimum wage. But Manning emphasised yesterday that it was only because Government realised that the current circumstances preclude the implementation of this benefit at this time, that the process had been delayed.

“While we feel confident that those circumstances will change, if they don’t change, then we just don’t do it. If they (the circumstances) change, we will. In other words whatever we do must have as its bottom line the interest of the people of Trinidad and Tobago. And if by doing something it would upset that interest or aversely affect it in any way, then the Government has a responsibility to do otherwise,” the PM said. Manning said he anticipated no conflict between Achong — who has been on the picket line with the striking LNG workers — and the new minister, Anthony Roberts, over the sectoral minumum wage. “We are on the same side of the fence. We  are all members of the PNM, and the conflict you anticipate, I don’t,” he said.