The Senate unanimously approved the second reading on the 30% increase to the minimum wage paid in the public and private sectors. Seventeen of 32 senators present voted for the increase. The bill establishes that government workers receive the increase in January, as the funds are to be allotted in the 2005 National Budget yet to be ratified in Congress.
The legislation must first be acceded by the Chamber of Deputies where legislators seem to have other ideas. A special commission of deputies formed to study the wage increase issue, as reported in El Caribe, plans to exclude the private sector from their wage increase proposal. The president of the special commission, Luis Jose Gonzalez Sanchez, said they are not contemplating the private sector because the National Salaries Commission has already determined an increase of 30% for private employees earning the legal minimum level and one of 25% for monthly wages of up to RD$20,000.
The legislators plan to set the minimum wage for the public sector at RD$4,000, up from RD$1,890. Government officials, nevertheless, are advocating that they apply 15% in January and the remaining 15% in July. El Caribe reports that the government has plans to pay wages of RD$21.45 billion in 2005, including the 13th Christmas salary. The government has 267,384 fixed employees on its payrolls, of which 123,633 earn less than RD$5,000 a month, according to National Budget Office figures. Some 138,024 government workers make between RD$5,000 and RD$20,000, or 61% of the total number of public sector workers. Another 5,727 people (2% of total employed) earn more than RD$20,000, but they gobble up 14% of the total payroll. In September alone, the government paid RD$1.65 billion in wages to fixed employees.
The wage increase as it currently stands will cost the government at least RD$9 in additional expenditures.