Hon Skelton wants public debate on Minimum Wage Report now tabled in HoA
The document tabled by Deputy Premier and Minister for Financial Services, Labour, and Trade, Honourable Lorna G. Smith, OBE, (AL), was immediately met with an indication by the Leader of His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, Honourable Ronnie W. Skelton (AL), that he intends to bring a motion to have the details fleshed out publicly.
Hon Skelton, told the Speaker of the HoA, Honourable Corine N. George-Massicote, that “I suggest that this is such an important topic, that we put it on the Order Paper at a later date, to be debated.”
This, according to Hon Skelton, is “so the public can be quite aware of all the concerns in the document.”
The minimum wage in the Virgin Islands was last increased on October 1, 2016, from $4.00 per hour to $6.00 per hour.
Cabinet met on July 9, 2024, and approved the Minimum Wage Report and also recommended the raising of the Minimum Wage to $8.50 per hour effective November 30, 2024.
Information reaching our News Centre is that the Minimum Wage Advisory Committee had actually recommended that the Minimum Wage be increased to $9.00 per hour.
.png)
Follow Us On
9 Responses to “Hon Skelton wants public debate on Minimum Wage Report now tabled in HoA”
I've just had it with these elected officials.
Nevertheless, you all are going to the polls and but them right back in to do nothing or take advantage of you.
Hon. Minister Ronnie Skeleton, Opposition Minister, proposal should not be accepted as is, in my opinion, but should not be totally ignored.
The bigger problems, though, are government leaders, especially the ruling party ignorance of minimum wage earners needs and wasteful money spending, carelessly.
Where There Is A Will, There Are Ways.
Government leaders, especially the ruling party, business employers, minimum wage employees and the public at large should be mindful that this Topic Issue cannot be overlooked. It was for too long, and is now a huge problem.
A compromise is needy in order to arrived at a win/win conclusion. An eight years minimum wage review should never again be allowed to happened in the BVI. VIP government: the ball ???? is in you court now.
And to the question of why not $10. The reaction to that would cause ridiculously higher inflation than we already have. Remember people are in business to make money, and what a large firm can swallow as a loss, a small business cannot and may go out of business, resulting in less economic opportunity for everyone. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction aka cause and effect.
$8.50 per hour is not a living wage, given the skyrocketing cost of the proverbial basket of goods, ie, food, clothing, other consumer goods, especially for residents at the lowest rung of the economic ladder. These workers definitely needs some assistance and the question is the best way to get them relief? Is raising the minimum the only way to do so? Does the tax exemption level needs to be raised and how will revenue intake and delivery of service be impacted? Here is a news flash and reality. Low skill, no skill jobs are going to exist and there are going to be a need for no skill, low skill, robots aside. Yes, robots are taking jobs of blue collar workers; Globalization, AI taking jobs of white collar workers. Back to the minimum wage bill, it is needed but should have been higher and phased in over a 3-year period to give employers time to make adjustments. There will be fallout from the bill, ie, rise in cost of living, increasing of inflation, increase in unemployment, greedy merchants will raise their prices, etc