Can Belizean Workers Really Survive on Five Dollars Minimum Wage?

Union Senator Glenfield Dennison says the cost of living is exposing just how far behind the minimum wage has fallen. At today’s NTUCB press conference, he compared the five-dollar minimum wage to the price of a gallon of fuel, arguing that workers simply cannot keep up. Dennison says that after forty-five years as a country, Belize should be doing much better for its lowest-paid workers. Here is how he put it.

 

Glenfield Dennison, Union Senator

“We have a minimum wage of five dollars right, minimum wage of five dollars. I just want to leave this right here. You know why I say it is slavery, because three hours of labor to buy one gallon of gas. You know what they use to do with the slaves? They use to have them with ledgers and then you go buy at the massa shop and then when your pay is finished you have to stay on the planation because you can’t leave. That is how you do it when you have minimum wage at five dollars an hour and you need three hours of work to buy one dollars of gas. We will be stuck as a society if we don’t do something about that. We need to see this new plantation for what it is, you know. We are in a slave mill still. We need to do better as a country. Forty-five years as a country and this is where we are? Dah like we the regress.”

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

Watch the full newscast here: