Labor Minister Luis Miguel De Camps announced the National Wage Committee could be convened next week for minimum wage talks. The intention is to compensate workers in the private sector for the accumulated inflation. President Luis Abinader had announced in his state of the nation address on 27 February 2023.
The National Wage Committee has been convened five times during the Abinader administration that began in August 2020.
“In this week, it should be convened for next week, which we hope will be the last (meeting). In that direction, we, as a government sector, have proposed the construction of a social pact for decent wages and decent jobs that will allow the establishment of a wage increase, not only now in 2023, but in a coordinated manner and paired for the coming years,” De Camps said.
He said the pact to be reached is to reduce the gap between the cost of the basic food basket and the minimum wages, with due care that the increases are not all at once.
President Abinader had said on 27 February 2023 that the pertinent dialogues are currently underway to produce new salary increases to guarantee that Dominican workers have a better quality of life, and that this is achieved by increasing the salary above inflation.
“I am instructing the Minister of Labor to convene in the next few days the National Wage Committee to achieve an increase in private sector salaries, which is above the accumulated inflation since the last increase,” Abinader expressed in his third accountability speech to the nation on 27 February 2023.
During the interview on the radio program El Sol de la Mañana, De Camps said that the salary increase approach will always be under consensus and will consider the size of the companies.
“The last revision established four categories of the non-sectorized minimum wage, divided by size of large, medium, small and micro companies,” he said, as reported in Diario Libre.
The last approved increase to the non-sectorized private sector minimum wage was in 2021. Since that date, there has been an accumulated inflation of around 17.02 %, approximately.
Classification of companies:
Micro enterprises are those with up to 10 workers and gross sales of up to 8 million pesos per year.
Small companies are those with 11 to 50 workers and gross sales of between 8 and 54 million pesos in annual sales.
Medium-sized companies, with 51 to 150 workers and sales of 54 to 202 million pesos in annual sales.
Large companies are those with more than 150 employees and more than 202 million pesos in gross annual sales.
The announcement comes at a time when the Tax Department since 2017 has not indexed Dominican wages for inflation as established. This would be a measure that would increase earnings for middle income workers. Diario Libre reported that if the wages were indexed, wages up to RD$44,916.36 a month would be exempt from income taxes, not those of RD$34,685 as at present.
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Diario Libre
Diario Libre
1 March 2023