The minimum wage bill – example of plantation life

EDITOR: The minimum wage bill, gazetted March 4, 2024 is classic example of subservience of plantation life.

For the period of slavery in the Caribbean and the Americans, the Black man was never subservient to his captives and or perceived owners, hence the reason why he was guarded by weaponry twenty-four- seven.

The concept of minimum wage came about as an extension of the abolition of slavery and serfdom to protect the vulnerable against the psychological effects of slavery. After so many years of emancipation, people ought to be allowed to make a determination between (1) The rendering of a service. (2) The value of that service rendered and (3) The affordability to pay for that service.

A trained service provider regardless of his/her level of training ought not to be considered an ‘employee’ nor the recipient of his/her service an ‘employer. Life is competitive. If to the service provider, the price offered for his service is below his/her expectation, then it ought to be his/her right to reject it. Similarly, if the price offered is beyond that of the recipient, they too must have the right to reject it. There is always an alternative.

This minimum wage bill only serves as a catalyst for the level of mendicancy and low level of productivity we are experiencing in SVG.

As you travel around St. Vincent, you see the low level of productivity, especially in the agricultural sector. This is not due only to lack of market or praedial larceny, but to a large extent, the inability of land owners to pay for the cultivation, and also the unavailability of a workforce, as too many of our Secondary School graduates, besides being ‘glorified watchmen/women,’ see mendicancy and marijuana smoking with the accompanied expletives throughout the country as an alternative means of employment.

The Main objectivity of the Bill

The main objectivity of the bill is to help falsify the statistics of the NIS, since each employer/employee will have to be registered and will be contributing to the Fund.

Ralph Gonsalves/ the Five Star General and World Boss

Since the 2015 General Elections, Ralph Gonsalves has prominently depicted himself on a billboard at the entrance into the capital city Kingstown, with the slogan: FIVE STAR GENERAL/WORLD BOSS.

Since the abolition of slavery August, first 1938, there has never been or could be anything more dehumanizing, insulting and or humiliating to Black people in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. St. Vincent, a country of almost 99% Black people and given our history of Slavery. We have let our guards down to give a man of Portuguese decent, a man who both mother and father are direct descendants from Madeira in Portugal, the privilege to manage this country in the capacity as Prime Minister and this is all the thanks we’ve gotten for it. An Oligarch with no respect.

Ralph Gonsalves, in 2007, St. Vincent received a grant of US$250.000 to celebrate the 200th Anniversary of the Abolition of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. To date there is not a single pole, billboard or placard in this country, depicting the use and history of that grant.

Could you say how it was spent. It is part of our Reparatory Justice.

Matthew Thomas