Live Video Replay: Committee On Living Wage
[Updated] The ‘Parliamentary Joint Select Committee on the Living Wage’ conducted a Public Meeting this evening at St. Paul’s Centennial Church Hall in Hamilton; with the presenters including lawyer Philip Perinchief, BIU President Chris Furbert, CURB’s Lynne Winfield, economist Craig Simmons and statistician Cordell Riley.
The evening began at 8.00pm with the presenters making brief remarks, before the floor was opened to questions.
The 2-hour live video replay is below
The bi-partisan Parliamentary Joint Select Committee on the Living Wage’ is comprised of MP and Senators, and they will be submitting a report to Parliament on their findings and recommendations.
The Chairperson of the Committee is MP Rolfe Commissiong, and other Committee Members are Independent MP Shawn Crockwell, PLP Senator Kim Wilkerson, PLP MP Lawrence Scott, OBA Senator Vic Ball, OBA MP Leah Scott, and Independent MP Mark Pettingill.
Update 10.38pm: A slideshow of comments from presenter Philip Perinchief is below [PDF here]:
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The Government taxes imports 35%.
The Government bans most U.S. chain stores from setting up in Bermuda, which keeps prices high.
The Government bans import of some types of food, so Bermuda farmers charge very high prices.
If the Government changed these policies, people’s wages would go a lot farther.
You need a standing ovation!!! Somebody who finally gets the idea that Bermuda has done this to itself.
Sorry SID but your arguments are based on false assumptiong. Introducing more competition (or regulation) will not drive down prices – just look at what has happened in the telecomms industry. The processed food market is already saturated with bulk food importers and that has not had a large effect of food prices. The problem with Bermuda’s economy is purely caused by its size i.e. limited demand.
Other jurisdictions of our size don’t have the same high price of food as Bermuda. Your argument is flawed.
Other small islands of under 70,000 people, 700 miles from the nearest land?
Which jurisdictions, exactly?
Sorry to say but that is what Capitalism is all about, the less you pay people the more profit you make.
So, communism would be a better way to go eh? Provide one example where THAT has been a success.
A living wage should also come with a living work ethic, tight controls & limits on social assistance, tight work permit controls and a massive shake up of Gov’t Depts like moving Government services like buses, ferries, garbage collection, Parks, W & E, Education/Public schools etc to Authorities like the successful BTA..
“The Government taxes imports 35%.
The Government bans most U.S. chain stores from setting up in Bermuda, which keeps prices high.
The Government bans import of some types of food, so Bermuda farmers charge very high prices.
If the Government changed these policies, people’s wages would go a lot farther.”
Basic economics is a huge challenge for most of Bermudas population.
What a shame not one person got it right none of them gone right over there head
WORK ETHIC IS THE KEY TO PROSPERITY
There is a downloadable PDF from Phil Perinchief.
One of his slides states:
“Bermuda’s problem is exacerbated by overwhelming number of monopolies and irresponsible behaviours of merchant and professional class”.
One of the examples (of this) he gives is:
“Importing three foreign workers and collectively paying them the wage of one Bermudian worker”.
So – presumably – the idea is to replace the three foreign workers on the low wage, with three Bermudians on the higher, new minimum wage? Either that, or the productivity of a Bermudian worker is on a par with the three foreign workers.
Is this man serious?
Much of this it total nonsense. To suggest that by legislating that (some) people get paid more will NOT equate to people spending more and everyone being better off. Totally untrue. Where do you expect employers to get this extra money to pay (some) people extra?? They do not print it in the basement of their business!!! We all know where the money will come from. Economic growth is the key here – not a minimum wage – call it what you want, the proposal is for a legislated minimum wage. What would this minimum wage be…$20? $21?? Why stop there, why not $50 or $100 an hour??
And to have CURB represented.. OMG really?
Economists are people with their head in a fire and their feet frozen in a block of ice who claim that on balance they feel fine.
Things will only get more expensive.
Apparently profit is an evil thing based on some comments here. I assume people think that businessmen/women should put their hard earned money at risk in order to provide jobs but they should not be allowed to earn a profit.
I had a situation in which a company I partly owned was being wound up and the regulatory capital requirements were going to be returned to the shareholders. One of my staff made the claim that as the statutory requirement was paid by way of cash earned from operations and because the staff had done their work and earned the money for the company to enable that requirement to be met, that she and the staff should be the beneficiaries of that return of capital.
I then asked her that had things been different and there was a significant deficit would she and the staff then cover that shortfall?
Apparently not. If it was a loss position the owners should pay.
Amazing.