The Jamaica Confederation of Trade Unions (JCTU) said Wednesday that it was dissatisfied with the Government's approach to dealing with the National Minimum Wage.

In a release, the union claimed its adjustment was too ad hoc and failed to grasp the wider social and economic policy implications evident in minimum wage regulations.

JCTU Vice-President, Danny Roberts, said the adjustment of the minimum wage was too haphazard and had "failed to show clear signs of attempting to fix the minimum wage as a tool of macroeconomic policy objectives to provide a 'living wage' for the working poor and the most vulnerable in our society".

Living wage threshold

He said an increase of the minimum wage by 17 per cent would not raise the wages of the minimum-wage earners to the required $5,325 per week, which is a living wage as defined by the Ministry of Labour and Social Security.

However, while not advocating that the amount be increased in a single year to that figure, he said there needed to be a formulation which fixed the relative level of the minimum wage by applying the internationally prescribed concepts of: (i) the needs of the workers; (ii) the capacity to pay; (iii) comparable wage and income; (iv) requirements of economic development.

Roberts said that minimum-wage fixing in many countries in Latin America has recognised that there are three general policy issues which inform the debate about minimum-wage reform: the need to stabilise the economy against the background of high inflation; the impact of minimum wage on job growth in the formal sector; and, how best to use minimum-wage policy to improve pay equity.