Raising the minimum wage without complying with Law 187-17 on the reclassification of companies, as the National Wage Committee (CNS) did on Tuesday, 9 July 2019 will directly affect the competitiveness and development of the MSMEs sector, Dinorah Subero said on Wednesday, 10 July.
The president of the Dominican Confederation of Small and Medium Enterprises (Codopyme) said that the raise without the application of Law 187-17 that calls for setting wages by company size is unsustainable. Subero said that a reclassification of companies would encourage the formalization of MSMEs, among other advantages for companies and workers.
“This [present] situation will be causing small businesses to go bankrupt and thus increases the likelihood of mass layoffs and labor lawsuits,” she said. She says it will lead to increased unemployment.
The Ministry of Labor said when announcing the minimum wage increases that the talks on the reclassification of companies would be convened in 60 days.
Likewise, the president of the National Council of Merchants and Entrepreneurs of the Dominican Republic (Conacerd), Antonio Cruz Rojas, also considered that the decision to increase the minimum wage by 14% “was not the right one”. The business leader said that the Ministry of Labor has again ignored Law 187-17 that establishes a business classification for companies according to the number of workers and gross sales.
Law 187-17 classifies companies as:
Microenterprise: Company with up to 10 workers and gross annual sales of up to RD$8,000,000.00
Small: Company with 11 to 50 workers and gross annual sales of up to RD$54,000,000.00.
Medium: Company with 51 to 150 workers and annual gross sales of up RD$202,000,000.00.
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Hoy
11 July 2019