Is It Time to Raise the National Minimum Wage Again?

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NASSAU , BAHAMAS – $6.50 an hour, or $260 for a 40-hour workweek.

That’s the national minimum wage currently in place in the Bahamas.

It took effect in January 2023, following a recommendation from the National Tripartite Council.

Three years later, the council says it’s time to start another conversation about wages.

But for council President Sharon Martin, the issue is not simply whether the minimum wage should go up.

She’s calling for a dedicated wage-setting body that would regularly examine pay across the country, including the minimum wage and the challenges facing lower-paid workers.

Sharon Martin – Chairman, Bahamas Tripartite Council

“A body that deals specifically with wages, a body that sets policies, policies that affect not just the gender gap, but contractual workers and their pay differences.”

Martin says the country needs a better system for deciding when wages should be reviewed.

She made the case during the National Tripartite Council’s General Assembly Workshop, which brought together representatives from government, employers and workers.

She points out that, before the 2023 wage increase, workers had waited about a decade for an adjustment.

Sharon Martin – Chairman, Bahamas Tripartite Council

“It took us a decade before that was done. Why? And then we barely moved people above the poverty line. And then now, because public servants and other persons would have gotten raises in the private sector, now we have pushed those people down below the poverty line.”

And her call didn’t fall on deaf ears.

Labour and Public Service Minister Pia Glover-Rolle says she supports taking another look at the minimum wage.

Pia Glover-Rolle – Minister, Labour, Public Service and National Insurance

“I will be taking that consideration to Cabinet for further discussion and to the Finance Committee. And I also support a wage-setting council so that we can have a standardized bureau, if you will, where the stakeholders are represented through the NTC, that we can continue to review wages in our country.”

And as for whether another wage body could actually work, Glover-Rolle believes the foundation is already there.

Pia Glover-Rolle – Minister, Labour, Public Service and National Insurance

“It’s something that through the National Tripartite Council can be arranged with the perfect stakeholders: the government representatives, the employer confederations, and the workers’ representatives. That’s the exact mix that needs to be at the table in terms of the effects, in terms of the causes, and in terms of the necessities of monitoring our wages.”