Deputy Geoff Southern lodged a proposition in February which would see the Island’s minimum wage rise to £10 an hour by 2022 if passed next week. The current minimum wage is £8.32.
The St Helier Reform Deputy has now lodged an amendment that if successful means the proposals would not need to be referred to the Employment Forum – as would ordinarily be the case for minimum-wage increases.
He said: ‘If we can legislate to cut the Employment Forum out of the process this gives us plenty of scope and the time to replace it with the appropriate expertise and mechanism.’
The original proposition also seeks to change Jersey’s 2003 Employment Law so at least two members of the voluntary sector ‘with an interest in the alleviation of poverty’ would be appointed to the forum. Deputy Southern wants the forum to examine the feasibility of setting Jersey’s minimum wage at the level of the Island’s living wage.
Reform Jersey pledged in its 2018 election manifesto to bring forward a minimum-wage proposal and Deputy Southern said the proposition went one step further by also requesting Social Security Minister Judy Martin to examine the potential for setting the minimum wage at living-wage level – classed as the minimum income necessary for a worker to meet their basic needs. Deputy Southern has called it an ‘opportunity, post Covid-19, to build back better and fairer’. He added that the minister had ‘made it abundantly clear’ there would be no increase in the 2020 rate in April 2021.
Deputy Southern said: ‘No increase in the minimum wage will see those workers who are on the lowest wages worse off than they were pre-Covid. This runs directly opposite to our aim to reduce income inequality, and I consider it a matter requiring urgent consideration.’
He said Deputy Martin was holding a consultation in response to the proposition, over ten weeks starting on 19 April. However, Deputy Southern said he was ‘left with the impression that the consultation is put together in a hurry, poorly constructed and not well focused, in that it is so open ended it could encompass every opinion under the sun and fail to differentiate properly’.
The potential changes are due to be debated by the States next week.
