PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti – Haiti has announced an increase in the minimum wages less than a week after police used teargas to disperse textile workers who had taken to the streets to demand an increase in their minimum wages.
Haiti has announced an increase in minimum wages less than a week after textile workers had taken to the streets to demand an increase. (CREDIT: AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery)The workers were demanding a 300 percent increase in the minimum wage, which is now 500 Gourdes (One Gourde=US$0.009 cents) per eight -hour working day in addition to other social benefits, such as transport and food subsidies.
The Council of Ministers met on Sunday and agreed to increase the minimum wages for different categories of workers effective Monday.
According to the decree published in the Official Journal “Le Moniteur” workers in the private electricity production; financial institutions, telecommunications; import-export trade; supermarkets; jewelry stores; art galleries; furniture, furniture and appliance stores; doctor’s office and polyclinics, will receive an 54 percent increase moving their minimum wage from 500 to 770 Gourdes.
The Council said workers in the buildings and public works (BTP); truck and heavy machinery rental companies; construction material rental companies; construction material transport companies; hardware stores; other financial institutions such as cooperatives, credit unions will receive a 39. 7 percent increase with their new wages being 615 Gourdes, up from 440 Gourdes.
Another segment of workers who received 385 Gourdes per eight-hour day, will now receive 540 Gourdes and these workers are those in the restaurants; agriculture, forestry, livestock and fishing; agricultural products processing industry and retail trade.
The decree had also announced salary increases 37 to 40 percent for workers whose daily pay ranges from 250to 440 Gourdes.
Last week, Senate President, Joseph Lambert, called for an independent investigation into the circumstances that led to police officers using teargas to break up a demonstration by textile workers who had been seeking an increase in wages.
In a letter sent to Frantz Elbé, the Director General of the National Police of Haiti (PNH), Lambert said he was dismayed at the strong manner in which the police had intervened to break up the demonstration by the textile workers, who had been demonstrating peacefully.’
Lambert called on Elbé to launch an investigation into the matter and “take the corresponding” actions as a result of the findings.
Secretary General of the Autonomous Center of Haitian Workers (CATH), Fignolé Saint Cyr, said that the minimum wage in Haiti had not been readjusted since November 1, 2019.
He said that the law provides for an adjustment each time inflation exceeds 10 percent, which has been the case for the past two years.
