THE Fiji Council of Employers Federation wants the government to strengthen wage setting frameworks.
This call comes in the wake of Cabinet approving a national minimum wage review that will include the ten minimal sectoral wage sectors.
The technical, legal and institutional aspects of how wages are set in Fiji need to be properly established, said FCEF CEO Edward Bernard.
“We do not have a minimum wage council to allow for tripartite discussions and nor do we have a wage policy or criteria to ensure transparent and evidenced based wage setting in Fiji,’’ Bernard said.
”The government has yet to put in the necessary criterion and therefore may already be in breach of labour laws according to the FCEF.
It has been about 18 months since the last wages increase which was an 11.1 per cent jump from $4.50 to $5 per hour.
However, this was done without the proper frameworks in place, and there was no subsequent data or evidence collection according to Bernard.
It’s not all bad news though.
“We are encouraged by Government plans to include wages trends, labour market and economic conditions and productivity levels as part of the announced wage reviews. These, including the huge in-bound remittance and Government’s social protection benefits that workers and households are benefiting from, are also equally important to include in the study,” Bernard said.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) meanwhile asserts that Fiji’s mean and median wages are comparatively higher than 16 countries outside the Pacific, including Indonesia, India, Vietnam, Thailand and Mexico.
FCEF has written to Permanent Secretary for Employment, Productivity and Workplace Relations Maritino Nemani highlighting their concerns.
